You heard it on the broadcast over and over again: “Where’s the security? Where’s the security?”

It was a great question. Players were running into the stands to assault fans, fans were running onto the court to do the same to the players. An ugly brawl had erupted at the Palace in Auburn Hills, Mich., and nobody was prepared for it.

In what is going to be a long process of assigning blame, the lack of any effective courtside security is going to be the first item on the agenda.

It probably shouldn’t be, though. If you were to make a list of the top 10 reasons why one of the worst incidents in the history of American sports erupted, number one is this:

A fan threw a water bottle at Ron Artest.

Since he did it, the fan clearly thought it was an acceptable way of showing his disapproval of the most controversial player in the game. After all, we hear about fans throwing things all the time, from snowballs and oranges at football games to batteries at baseball games to coins at hockey games — they melt into the ice and are hell on skaters. We even make jokes about it.

Only this time, it wasn’t a joke. Artest is seldom far from an eruption, and the act was almost certain to result in the ugly mess the NBA and Auburn Hills police are now sorting through.

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This hardly exonerates Artest or anyone else involved, from Ben Wallace, whose reaction to Artest’s hard foul in the closing minute of the game was wildly excessive, to the other Pacers — Jermaine O’Neal and Stephen Jackson — who beat up on fans in the stands and on the court.

And it doesn’t absolve the Palace at Auburn Hills, the Pistons and the NBA from their inability to provide any security that might have stopped it all from happening. The only thing I’ve seen that was worse than this was the brawl in Madison Square Garden that erupted when Andrew Golota was disqualified for multiple punches delivered with evil intent to Riddick Bowe’s groin.

Both brawls shared one common factor — arena security was insufficient and unprepared to deal with the possibility of a riot. Considering the barely controlled rage that simmers just beneath the surface of professional sports, no one can say they never expected a riot to break out. If they didn’t, they haven’t been paying attention.

But it starts with an idiot fan throwing an object at a player. That’s assault. It’s a crime. It’s not part of sports, and maybe it’s time we started saying so.

Maybe it’s time we started telling fans that there are limits to the ways they can show their support for their team. Maybe instead of encouraging them to behave as badly as possible, all in the name of providing home-court advantage, we should start throwing out people who cross the line. Players have been suspended indefinitely for this. Fans who threw objects — including everyone who pelted the Pacers as they left the court — also should be suspended. Pull their tickets. Tell them to stay home.

And with Artest, the official Village Idiot of the NBA — accept no substitutes. After igniting an on-court scuffle by fouling Wallace just as hard as he could in the last minute of a game the Pacers had pretty much wrapped up, Artest decided to lounge on the scorers table while players from both teams had a spirited and angry pushing and shoving match. Artest even put on a set of headphones borrowed from an announcer to show how unconcerned he was.

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That’s when the genius fan, outraged at losing, outraged at Artest’s foul, probably stoked with a few adult beverages, looked at Artest and snapped. He threw something at Artest — apparently a water bottle — and connected.

So Artest, who had committed the foul and then mocked the building by laying on the table, leaped into the stands throwing punches. Then all hell broke loose.

It’s obvious to say Artest had no business going into the stands. Athletes are trained to ignore the abuse that they inherit along with their lofty lifestyles and status. It’s something you never, ever do.

But someone hit him with a bottle. He’s got a fuse shorter than Charles Barkley’s hair. He did what most people would do when assaulted — he fought back.

Dumb, yes. And he’ll pay with a vacation from the game that could — maybe should — be longer than that month-long leave of absence he asked for a couple of weeks ago. He probably won’t mind. After all, he has an R&B album to promote.

But if it was dumb, it’s also predictable. Not everyone has the near superhuman self-control demanded of athletes. If not Artest, someone was going to do what he did somewhere. It was just a matter of time.

This wasn’t a glimpse of nipple or a silly promo featuring an apparently naked woman. This is real obscenity, the eruption of the hatred and violence that bubbles so dangerously just below the surface of sports.

We encourage the raw emotion, exhort the fans to make noise, give them balloons and towels and noisemakers whose sole purpose is to raise the adrenaline level in the arena or stadium and rattle the opposition. When the paying customers scream streams of foul and abusive expletives on the opposition, we say what great fans they are and what a tough venue their home court is.

We want our players to go after the game with passion and intensity. It’s hard, if not impossible, to recall a “bad” guy or dirty player who hasn’t been beloved and idolized in his home building.

Detroit is one of those towns that prides itself on how tough its fans are. It built this situation. But it didn’t do anything to make sure that there would be sufficient security to step in when the inevitable explosion occurred.

But it starts with that fan, the guy who’s been encouraged all his life to be extreme, to be abusive and obnoxious, to do everything he can to make life miserable for the other guys, even to blindly hate anyone in a rival’s jersey. We made that guy.

There are standards for players. How about establishing some for fans?

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