Long before the season started, the NBA scheduled Pistons-Pacers on Christmas Day, figuring a rematch of the Eastern Conference finals would be pleasant holiday viewing. It isn’t, as we all know, and yet there the game stays, an ugly blot on what is for most American’s the year’s most festive day.

There is no reason for the game that is now Round 2 of the brawl that indelibly stained pro basketball’s image to still be on the holiday menu. I know the official line — TV scheduled it for that day, and there’s nothing they can do about it. But that reasoning doesn’t wash.

Leagues reschedule games all the time. Football games were rescheduled when Florida and the gulf coast were hosting a parade of hurricanes. Starting times are pushed up and back to satisfy TV schedules. Games are postponed for power outages and snowstorms.

What happened in the Palace in Auburn Hills between the Pacers and Pistons wasn’t a natural disaster, but it was a disaster just the same. And NBA commissioner David Stern wasted no time in punishing the players who rushed into the stands to pummel fans.

But Stern didn’t finish the job. He knew then as he knows now that Detroit and Indiana were going to meet again on Christmas Day. Just as he suspended players, he should have suspended the game.

Play it a day early or a day late. Stuff it into a hole in the March or April part of the schedule. Or even just play it but refuse to allow it to be broadcast. Just don’t make this ugly memory the NBA’s Christmas present to the country.

It’s not that there’s likely to be a repeat of the violence of that first meeting. It would be shocking if there were. For one thing, Ron Artest, who started it all with his flagrant foul on Ben Wallace, is sitting out the rest of the season. For another, the players have been told by coaches, columnists, commentators, league officials, spouses, children and great aunts not to do anything other than play the game cleanly. They weren’t proud of what they did; they’re not going to do it again.

It’s more likely that it will be a lousy game than a good one. Neither team is tearing up the league. Neither is particularly exciting to watch. It’s likely neither wants to be on the court on Christmas, not with their history.

Even Pistons coach Larry Brown said the he’d rather not play the game. He didn’t mean not play it at all. He’s a coach and he knows that no matter what happens during a season, you regroup and plug on through the schedule. He just meant it shouldn’t be broadcast into the nation’s living rooms and dens on Christmas.

He’s right. Because when ESPN broadcasts the game, it will also replay the brawl so often it will seem as if it’s on a tape loop. The replays, in fact, have already begun. The announcers will assume sad voices as they remark how appalling the scene was and how such things have no place in sports, and let’s hope it doesn’t happen again. And then they’ll replay it another time, just so they can lament some more.

Does anyone seriously want that on television at midday on Christmas? Do you plop down in the middle of torn gift wrap and abandoned bows and ribbons, the tree twinkling to one side, the kids still in a frenzy as they try out all the toys, turn on the television, and say, “Hey, honey! Come quick! Watch what Artest does to this guy!”?

There is enough needless violence in the world, even on Christmas, without adding to it with games like Pistons-Pacers. And it is hard enough, with the images and stories of horrible carnage flooding in every day from Iraq, to get a handle on the peace on earth theme of the day.

Forget the outrage over Janet Jackson’s nipple and that Desperate Housewives tableau that had everyone’s knickers in a knot. The real obscenity is broadcasting this game and the replays of the brawl into homes where people are trying to feel good about themselves and their world. On a day of charity, the NBA is giving out free images of mindless violence.

Merry Christmas.

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