Remember three years ago when the New York Knicks and Boston Celtics rivalry had a new wrinkle added to it? Do you recall that time in January of 2013 when Carmelo Anthony and Kevin Garnett got into it on the court after Garnett supposedly said Carmelo’s wife Lala tasted ‘like Honey Nut Cheerios’ while they played?
Both players were hit with a technical foul and later, it was revealed that Carmelo was actually waiting for Garnett by the Celtics team bus to have a word with him.
Later in the playoffs that year Garnett’s teammate on the Celtics, Jordan Crawford, had some words for Carmelo alluding to the Garnett comments from earlier that year saying indeed Garnett and LaLa did have relations. As you would assume, Melo didn’t take too kindly to that.
Well here we are three years later and Kevin Garnett is close to retirement, Carmelo Anthony is wondering what is wrong with his career and an important person in the story, someone who was right in the middle of the action, is now a head coach in the NBA. New Cleveland Cavaliers coach Tyronn Lue might have been the man that broke up the KG-Melo possible postgame altercation.
Following from a fantastic piece courtesy of Dave McMenamin of ESPN.com.
“It’s just something that escalated on the court and it became a big ordeal on the floor. They were about to fight,” Lue told ESPN.com in a recent sit-down interview. “And then after the game, I just got wind that Carmelo was in the tunnel waiting on KG.”
Lue, who was an assistant coach for the Celtics at the time, had a strong relationship with Garnett, and also knew Anthony. If there was anyone to broker peace in the moment, it was Lue.
“I kind of went to Carmelo first just to talk to him like, ‘What’s the problem?'” Lue recalled. “Carmelo was like, ‘I just want to talk to him.’ I was like, ‘Carmelo, come on, you can’t.’ So, just trying to squash the whole thing.”
Meanwhile, Garnett emerged from the visitors locker room. Anthony, flanked by several friends, started to advance toward the notoriously big-mouthed big man. Now it was Lue’s turn to go work on Garnett.
“I just kind of broke it up and said, ‘No, we’re not going to do this. KG, come on, let’s get on the bus,'” Lue said, describing how he ushered Garnett onto the Celtics’ chartered vehicle.
Then it was time to go work on Anthony again.
“I get Carmelo’s number,” Lue said. “I call him, talk to him and put KG on the phone with him on the bus and they talked and we squashed it from there.”
What made Lue do it? Why stick his neck out in a beef that didn’t involve him between men twice his size? “Just instinctive,” Lue said.
