When Carmelo Anthony decided to take on the Celtics long after the final buzzer on Monday night, he invited the NBA to investigate his conduct and smack him with a suspension and/or fine.
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After a miserable performance in which he missed 20 of 26 shots, and again showed that he doesn’t cope very well when facing a physical team that gets in his grill, Anthony should have had the good sense to retreat to his locker room. Just call it a night and cool off before trying to explain to the media how the Knicks could lose to a Celtics team missing Rajon Rondo.
But after a bad Knicks loss, 102-96, Anthony wanted more action.
He first confronted Kevin Garnett when the teams left the court, by the Celtics’ locker room. Nothing physical. No punches thrown. Just lots of yelling, apparently, by Anthony.
Then he later went to where the Celtics were leaving the Garden near the ramp area and tried to continue to settle a score with Garnett. Luckily for everyone, a handful of cops and Garden security got him out of there before anyone got hurt.
Anthony can probably expect to hear from NBA security people Tuesday. They’ll want answers and he needs to come clean, plead guilty and then take his penalty.
One postgame incident might have only resulted in a fine. But two incidents likely will get Anthony a suspension, probably for Thursday’s game in Indiana.
But it should have never come to that point, where Anthony was still in a rage, even after one of those heated Celtics-Knicks games that is very much a part of the Boston-New York NBA landscape.
“Boston is known for talking all night,” Amar’e Stoudemire said. “But Carmelo didn’t back down at all.”
Maybe he didn’t, but his shooting and overall play suggested that the Celtics, especially Garnett, a noted baiter, had gotten under his skin.
It’s one thing to not back down on the court. But once the game ends, it’s time to move on.
The Celtics did so. Anthony didn’t, which isn’t going to help the perception that he’s matured into a MVP candidate for the first time in his career.
“This is the first time in his career that I see Carmelo trust his teammates,” Doc Rivers said beforehand.
BRUCE BENNETT/GETTY IMAGES
Carmelo Anthony and Kevin Garnett get to know each other a little bit better Monday night.
Then Rivers saw a much different Anthony, the player who tends to come unglued when he’s closely guarded. You saw it in a Knick loss down in Memphis early in the season. Then it happened again in the defeat to Chicago at the Garden when he was ejected for complaining about the officials’ lack of calls. Other teams know they can get under his skin, as long as the refs allow it.
But what he did Monday night went beyond on-court temper tantrums and technical fouls.
His behavior was out of bounds and unfortunate. His decision to bolt before talking to the media was juvenile. His play was not up to snuff, not by a longshot. There were no chants of “M-V-P” on this night, not when he picked up a technical during a fourth-quarter altercation with Garnett.
Garnett was asked about the first postgame confrontation, when Anthony exited by the Knicks bench instead of walking off the court at the other end, near the home-team locker room.
“That’s just basketball,” he said.
It was tough loss for the Knicks, all things considered. The NBA nailed Rondo on another one of those old charges he’s famous for — bumping an official — and that’s a no-no, even though the play on Saturday in Atlanta didn’t trigger a technical foul and hardly constituted a suspension. David Stern has a hard and fast rule: You can’t touch an official. Unless you’re pushed or jostled or forced into one, you’re not playing the next game. No exceptions.
Rondo hardly scraped up against referee Rodney Mott in Atlanta as he was on his way to another triple-double in Boston’s win. There was contact, minimal at best, but it was treated as if he had deliberately pushed Mott, which is exactly what Rondo had done last spring in Atlanta, against ref Mark Davis, to earn a one-game penalty. Same penalty, but nowhere near the crime this time.
“You know the old saying: You’re not given a reputation, you earn one,” Rivers said. “And I’m sure that had a lot to do with it, as well.”
Now Anthony is starting to get a reputation, too. The worst kind.
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