Philadelphia ? There will be those who’ll say the NBA’s five-game suspension of Knicks center Antonio Davis – who went into the stands at the United Center on Wednesday during New York’s overtime loss to the Bulls when he thought his wife, Kendra, was in distress after a confrontation with a fan – was too lenient.

The critics will say that in a post-Ron Artest NBA world, anyone going up among the paying public should be subject to, at minimum, a double-figure sitdown.

This time, those critics are wrong.

Davis has earned a reputation for tough but fair play throughout his career as an undersized center. He’s tried to be a mentor for young players, such as Al Harrington, who stayed in Davis’ house during his rookie season when both were Pacers. Quick to support the league’s new dress code, Davis has frequently talked about the need of NBA players to be role models; as the new president of the players’ association, he was one of the few basketball players asked to testify during congressional hearings on steroid use.

None of that would matter, of course, if Davis had acted the fool once he confronted the fan in the stands. If Davis had punched, or pushed, or grabbed, or even touched anyone in the stands, David Stern would be fully justified in sending Davis on an extended vacation.

But the incessant replays show Davis doing nothing physical. You can’t tell if he’s yelling or screaming at anyone because his back is turned as he’s listening to his wife. But his hands are at his sides. He doesn’t leave the area in which he’s standing. He looks one way and then another, but doesn’t move.

As Stu Jackson, the league’s vice president of operations, put it, Davis’ conduct was “very reasonable” once he left the floor.

You’ll no doubt hear that Stern is being hypocritical because he announced a zero-tolerance policy for players going into crowds in the wake of the Auburn Hills brawl.

What was Stern supposed to do: suspend Davis for 74 games because he suspended Artest for 73?

Davis should have known that his very presence ratcheted up the intensity of whatever was going on up there.

That was a terrible error in judgment on Davis’ part.

And that mistake, it says here, is worth about five games of his time and $700,000 of his money.