MIAMI — Here’s the thing. They’re right. All of them. They’re right, and they’re keeping it all in perspective, and they’re acting like grown-ups, and they’re acting like professionals and … and, well, damn them for all of that.
“It’s irrelevant,” Julius Randle said.
“It’s nothing,” Cody Zeller said.
“You just start over,” Isaiah Hartenstein said.
These were the three principals in the dustup — if it can even qualify as a dustup — that broke up the monotony of the Heat’s 105-86 throttling of the Knicks in Game 3 of these Eastern Conference semifinals Saturday.
And that was that. No hard words. No hard feelings. If we are talking like responsible citizens then we applaud all of the parties involved, sure. They acted in the heat of the moment, then metaphorically shook on it. It was over. Apparently, heading into Game 4 on Monday night, it is over.
There was 14.1 seconds left in the third quarter Saturday and the Heat led 87-70. The game was over, despite there being 12 minutes and change left, anyone who’d watched already knew that. Immanuel Quickley had just made a 13-foot floater for the Knicks. As he did, Zeller collided with Randle and Randle took a spill into the basket stanchion.
He wasn’t hurt, and in fact was smiling. But Hartenstein saw this and pushed Zeller in the back. Reacting to this, Miami’s Caleb Martin shoved Hartenstein, too. All three were whistled for technicals. Zeller’s and Hartenstein’s offset. Martin’s allowed Randle to take one technical free throw. To nobody’s great surprise, Randle missed the foul shot.
And while in the moment it sure felt like a thanks-for-the-memories throwback to some old Knicks-Heat shenanigans from back in the day … well, no. There was Randle’s laugh. There was Jimmy Butler shimmying during the resulting delay, also smiling, then spinning a ball on his fingertips, as carefree as a kid on the playground.
And look, officially and for the record: good. We don’t need the old tough-guy sideshows that used to either sidetrack or highlight those old series. We don’t need bloodshed. We don’t need haymakers and angry oaths. The game should be enough, OK? Officially and on the record: good for Zeller. Good for Randle. Good for Hartenstein. Good for basketball, proving once again that “ball don’t lie” as Randle’s T bounded away.
Between us?
It’s OK to admit, your blood started to race a little, didn’t it? Yes, this game was over for all intents and purposes — but the game was also over back in 1997, at old Miami Arena, when Charlie Ward and P.J. Brown — who’d attended prayer services together not three hours earlier — became entangled during a garbage-time free throw at the end of Game 5, a brushfire that soon escalated into one of the dark moments in Knicks history once the NBA star chamber came after them.
The game was also over back in 1998, a second and change left when Alonzo Mourning took exception to Larry Johnson’s … well, being Larry Johnson, the ex-teammates and longtime enemies getting into it, taking swings at each other, Jeff Van Gundy turning into a human street-sweeper as he grabbed Mourning’s leg. The Knicks lost LJ for Game 5 but the Heat lost Mourning.
As Sean Connery helpfully advises in “The Untouchables”: “They send one of yours to the hospital, you send two of theirs to the morgue.”
(And, yes, back in those days it was helpful to keep quotes like this at the ready because you really never knew when you might be able to use them.)
Alas, that was then.
This is now.
This the kinder, gentler version of Knicks-Heat, the corporate version, and so there were no blood feuds offered and no terms of war declared. They shook hands and moved on. Better for the game. Better for the series. Better for both teams to not add fuel to the respective fires at Kaseya Center and Madison Square Garden.
Still. There was a time …