New York Knicks guard Steve Francis says the media focuses disproportionately on the NBA because there is a predominance of black players, the New York Post reported Tuesday.

"In other sports, there are incidents that are way worse than basketball," said Francis in reference to the amount of coverage that Saturday night's brawl between the Knicks and Denver Nuggets has received. "So many worse things happen every game or four or five times a year, but because there are more black players in the NBA, it's under the microscope more than baseball or hockey."

Francis also defended coach Isiah Thomas, called a "jackass" by Nuggets coach George Karl.

"We all have Isiah's back," forward David Lee said before last night's 97-96 overtime victory over the Jazz at the Garden. "All he told us was to play hard for 48 minutes and to play to win.

The only reason George Karl said that is that he knows we're not playing Denver again," said Francis, who is out with right knee tendinitis. "I think if we were going back to Denver, he wouldn't have [made] those comments. I don't think it was right or fair on his part to say things like that. Hopefully, we'll be able to help our coach by winning more games."

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