Jason Collins still maintains it was a hard, clean foul he leveled on Knick forward Tim Thomas. Yes, the Net center wanted to hit Thomas. But he didn’t want to hurt him.
Still, Collins is being viewed as a cheap shot guy more and more. And that disturbs him.
“I do take a big exception to that,” said Collins, a quiet, unassuming sort who still plays a physical game – a style that thrust him into the biggest controversy of the series that continued last night at the Garden where the Nets sought a 3-0 lead. “My intent is never to go out there and hurt someone.
“I’ve had injuries, some bad injuries in my career. You never want that on anyone. You never go out there to play like that. That’s dirty, and I’m not a dirty player. I’ve said this before. It’s unfortunate that he feels that way.”
With Thomas calling for retaliation, with Dikembe Mutombo declaring “war,” Nets coach Lawrence Frank said his team was aware of possible penalties for jumping up and leaving the bench area in the event of trouble.
“Our guys understand. We’ve been through games like this. Everyone understands the rules and regulations. And our focus is on winning. Our focus isn’t on bench control or fighting because that’s not what the playoffs are about,” Frank said.
Richard Jefferson weighed in on the Tim Thomas controversy. And, surprise, he threw a verbal jab at the Knicks forward.
“I don’t want to say what I really think. I wouldn’t want to win any series by somebody getting hurt,” said Jefferson, whom Thomas referred to as ‘Jason Richardson.’
“But even him saying we took him out of the game because we couldn’t stop him? He had 12 points and it was a 20-point game with four minutes to go. If that’s his definition of being unstoppable . . . “
Frank on Thomas’ contention Kenyon Martin is phony tough: “I’m not going to comment based on what was written in the paper. I’ll just make a general blanket statement that there are few tougher than Kenyon Martin, but I’m not going to respond to something that was in the newspaper.”
And Frank said he wasn’t at all surprised Martin laughed at the matter and didn’t blow a gasket.
“Kenyon is a very mature man,” Frank said. “Hey, look, there are a lot worse things that have happened to all of us than some banter going back and forth.”
