Terrence Williams fires up jumpers Friday morning before Game 6. (Mike Petraglia/WEEI.com)

WALTHAM — In the hours before Game 6, Terrence Williams reminded everyone of the animosity between the Celtics and Knicks in this series.

“I always wanted to say this, that’s playoff basketball,” Williams said at Friday morning’s shootaround in Waltham. “Before I got here, I heard these two teams were rivals so you don’t expect anything less. But at the end of the day, it’s basketball. I think everything should be left on the court. Nothing should be escalated off the court like last game at the end of the game. Stuff like that shouldn’t happen but it’s playoff basketball.”

The back-up guard doesn’t think either team has any tricks in store for Game 6 at TD Garden. Williams made a point to once again bring up the Knicks funeral wardrobe before Game 5 at Madison Square Garden, and explained why that bothered him.

“No, there are no surprises,” Williams said. “At this point, I don’t think either team likes each other. We’re all for our guys and they’re for their guys. When people wear all black and say it’s a funeral, a lot of us have people that died in our own personal lives. That’s not really something funny. That’s not something to play with. You can say you’re going to end the series in New York but not [call it] a funeral. We know we don’t like them and we know they don’t like us.”

That bad blood was countered when Jordan Crawford verbally attacked Carmelo Anthony at the end of Game 5, giving the Knicks some ammunition in the war of words. Crawford didn’t play in Game 5 but Williams did. It was Williams, along with DJ White and Chris Wilcox, who was at the center of trying to keep Crawford away from Anthony and the Knicks.

“I was there, yeah,” Williams said Friday morning. “I don’t really remember. I put out of my mind. As you guys saw, I was trying to be the peacemaker. I grabbed Felton. I don’t want that to escalate. I don’t really remember.”

Has a message been sent from coach Doc Rivers and the staff about keeping the mouths shut before and during the game?

“I don’t know if it has or hasn’t,” Williams said. “It doesn’t really matter. At the end of the day, we’re going to compete. If there’s a funeral, then there’s a funeral. If there’s fuel to the fire with that, then it is what it is but you don’t really have to have that conversation because we’re not little kids. We’re professionals. We’re going to try and handle our jobs every day.”

Williams was the only Celtics player to talk Friday morning as the team prepared for the 7 p.m. tip at TD Garden.

If the Celtics ever pull off the seemingly impossible against the Knicks, let’s just say benchwarmer Jordan Crawford‘s weed socks aren’t exactly the equivalent of Red Sox ace Curt Schilling‘s bloody sock in 2004.

Just as Kevin Garnett denied the infamous Honey Nut Cheerios comment about Carmelo Anthony‘s wife Alani “La La” Vasquez earlier in the season, Crawford did the same about similar internet speculation after Game 5.

“Nah, they was talking to me, baby,” Crawford told The Boston Globe after seemingly starting a verbal altercation with Anthony and Raymond Felton despite playing exactly zero minutes in the C’s 92-86 win. “They was talking to me. Yeah, they like me. I think it’s that smile I keep carrying. I think we’re playing freely, not thinking as much.”

While Anthony escalated the Garnett feud outside the Celtics’ team bus after the January incident, the struggling NBA MVP candidate chose not to engage Crawford with his team on the brink of choking away a 3-0 series lead.

“I’m not thinking about no Jordan Crawford,” Anthony told reporters at the podium afterwards. “Not at this point in time. I’ll tell you that. I don’t even think he even deserves for you to be typing right now.”

Meanwhile, Crawford played dumb, which seems apt for a player talking trash after a DNP-coach’s decision.

“I don’t know what happened, you know what I’m saying?” he told the Globe. “I was on the bench the whole game, I don’t know why they was talking to me. They gotta be upset, their [expletives] tightening up. Of course they upset.”

Based on the way Doc Rivers scolded rookie Fab Melo for sticking around the fracas, it’s safe to say the Celtics coach won’t be too pleased with Crawford. Maybe he’ll even get benched. Oh, wait …

NEW YORK — In a series filled with trash talk back and forth, the animosity between the Celtics and Knicks reached a whole new level at the end of Game 5.

After the Celtics completed a 92-86 win at Madison Square Garden, the players were leaving the court and crossed paths with the Knicks, who were heading toward the other end and their locker room.

Video shows Jordan Crawford yelling at Carmelo Anthony, with Celtics reserve D.J. White trying to intercede and keep the peace. As the shouting continued, Raymond Felton is seen coming over and yelling at Crawford.

“I’m not thinking about no Jordan Crawford, not at this point in time. I’ll tell you that,” Anthony said afterward at his press conference. “I don’t even think he deserves for you to be typing right now.”

On Jan. 7, Anthony and Kevin Garnett got into a verbal battle that spilled over to the staging area near the Celtics’ bus. The argument allegedly involved comments that Garnett made about Anthony’s wife.

The animosity in the series began in earnest when J.R. Smith elbowed Jason Terry in the face with seven minutes to go in Game 3 and the Knicks leading by 19 points. Smith was suspended for Game 4, which the Celtics won in overtime, 97-90. Smith declared on Tuesday that he’d be golfing instead of practicing had he not been suspended because the Knicks would have swept the series.

Kenyon Martin added fuel to the fire when he suggested all of his teammates should wear black to Wednesday’s game since it would serve as a funeral for the Celtics.

WALTHAM — While his teammates waxed poetically about the focus necessary to win Wednesday’s do-or-die Game 5 against the Knicks in New York, these are the socks Celtics guard Jordan Crawford chose to wear to practice on Tuesday. They have marijuana leaves on them. Nothing says playoff intensity like weed socks.

Veteran leadership. Superior coaching. Clutch playmaking. Suffocating defense. When did the Celtics and Knicks switch jerseys? In the first two games of their opening-round series, New York has simply out-Celtics-ed the C’s.

Despite establishing halftime leads in their first two meetings, the Celtics failed to execute anything resembling an offense, toyed with head-scratching matchups and generally just crapped their pants after the break. The result is a 2-0 hole and an early NBA playoff exit staring them back in the face. That’s supposed to be the Knicks’ role.

This can’t be how a team led by Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett goes out. Can it? Doc Rivers is coaching like a desperate man, and maybe he is. Maybe he knows Garnett’s injuries are worse than we thought, Jordan Crawford is his best option off the bench and the success of the pitbull backcourt was simply smoke and mirrors.

Here’s what we do know: Carmelo Anthony is the best player in this series, and it’s not even close. The only guy who could possibly answer Anthony’s ability to create clutch offense out of nothing is dressed dapperly on the Boston bench. His name is Rajon Rondo, and he’s not walking through that door.

Paul Pierce used to be that guy, but now that his age matches his minutes, he can’t shoulder the load. Maybe on a night or two, but not over a seven-game series. Kevin Garnett was that guy as recently as last year’s playoffs, but cameras caught him clutching his abdomen on multiple occasions and bone spurs don’t disappear from your foot overnight. And Jeff Green may one day be that guy, but not now. Not consistently anyhow.

The C’s needed a collective effort from that trio in concert with a chorus line of contributions from their teammates, and nothing’s changed. That’s still the formula. Whether they can execute it or not is an entirely different matter.

Read the rest of this entry »

NEW YORK — On the same day he received a first-place vote for the NBA “Sixth Man” award (awarded to New York’s J.R. Smith), Jordan Crawford was insistent on one thing Monday, he wanted his first shot in a playoff game to go in.

“I was trying to make sure I made my first shot,” Crawford repeated several times when asked why, for the first time in his career, he didn’t even attempt a shot when playing at least 10 minutes in a game. That’s exactly what happened during Saturday’s Game 1 loss to the Knicks.

The irony was not lost on coach Doc Rivers, who put Crawford in for his explosive scoring ability. Rivers actually wants to play Crawford more in Game 2 and that means Crawford needs to get over his pursuit for perfection and worry about putting up big numbers for a bench that didn’t register a single field goal in Game 1 and was outscored, 33-4.

“I thought Jordan should have played more in the second half,” Rivers said. “It’s funny, he didn’t score, but he created baskets. He created that [Jeff Green] three at the end of the [first quarter] because he has the ability to do that. And, I’ll tell you, he’s buying in defensively and if he can continue to do that, then he has a chance to help us.”

Crawford was acquired from the Wizards at the NBA trade deadline in February, with the hope that he could provide some instant offense to a team that had just lost Rajon Rondo and was watching as Jason Terry went through a prolonged slump.

“Play my game, the game I continue to play that got me here that Doc Rivers wants me to play,” Crawford said. “So I’m just trying to help them win any way…Just be precise, don’t second guess nothing, be precise. Whatever you think to do, do it quick. If you make a mistake, do it hard.”

As for his other big first – an NBA playoff game – Crawford said he didn’t feel overwhelmed or overmatched.

“I really wanted to see if it was any different, if the intensity picked up or anything. But it’s pretty much the same, games just matter more,” he said.

Rivers made a point of saying how much he appreciated Crawford’s self control in his NBA playoff debut.

“I thought he was good. He stayed in his lane, let’s put it that way,” Rivers said. “He didn’t go outside of it. And usually guys in their first game, young guys do one or the other. They don’t do anything, and I thought he did far better than that. Or they try to do too much. I thought he was pretty much under control, emotionally.”

Maybe, as it turned out, too much.

J.R. Smith (8) was a step ahead of Jordan Crawford (27) and the Celtics on March 26. (AP)

NEW YORK — The Celtics got an up-close and personal look at just how dangerous J.R. Smith can be off the New York bench on March 26.

He scored 32 points and powered the Knicks to a 100-85 win, a victory that was part of New York’s 13-game winning streak at the end of the season that propelled them toward the Atlantic Division title.

On Monday, Smith was honored as the 2012-13 Kia NBA Sixth Man Award as the league’s best player in a reserve role. Smith, who came off the bench in all 80 games in which he appeared, led all reserves in scoring, averaging 18.1 points. Additionally, Smith added 5.3 rebounds per game, 2.7 assits and 1.3 steals in 33.5 minutes per game to a Knicks squad that went 54-28 and earned the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs.

Smith received 484 of a possible 1,084 points, including 72 first-place votes, from a panel of 121 sportswriters and broadcasters throughout the United States and Canada. Jamal Crawford of the Los Angeles Clippers finished second with 352 points (31 first-place votes). Jarrett Jack of the Golden State Warriors finished third with 170 points (14 first-place votes).

Boston’s Jordan Crawford received a first-place vote and finished seventh.

In order to be eligible for this award, players had to have come off the bench in more games than they started. Players were awarded five points for each first-place vote, three points for each second-place vote and one point for each third-place vote.

Smith, who led reserves in 30-point (seven) and 20-point games (29), became the first player with four 30-point games off bench in same month (March) since Ricky Pierce had four in November of 1990. He earned Player of the Week honors for games played March 25-31, leading the Knicks to a 4-0 record with averages of 29.8 points (second in the league), 7.0 rebounds and 1.5 steals. In Smith’s 80 games, the Knicks enjoyed a +5.3 score differential with him on the court compared with +1.9 when he was on the bench. Read the rest of this entry »