By the time reporters were admitted into the Boston locker room, Terry was already dressed and hurrying out the door.
BOSTON -- Friday night provided a rare occasion when Jason Terry didn't want to speak. The Boston Celtics guard has brushed off disappointments, made postseason promises and provided sound bites all season long.
But after Friday night's Game 3 loss to New York, which put Boston down 3-0 in the series, Terry apparently didn't feel like addressing the media. By the time reporters were admitted into the Celtics locker room, the veteran was already dressed and hurrying out the door.
He'd started for the first time in the series and scored 14 points, but more indicative of Boston's night were two other plays - when Pablo Prigioni picked Terry's pocket on a fast break, and when Terry threw a bounce pass essentially straight to the Knicks.
Another play stood out more even than those. About five minutes into the fourth quarter, Terry took an elbow to the face while defending J.R. Smith. Terry fell to the floor, bounced back up and was restrained from chasing after the Sixth Man of the Year. Smith was issued a flagrant 2 foul and ejected.
Terry didn't address the matter, of course, but head coach Doc Rivers spoke up.
"I wish I was playing," Rivers said. "I didn't like that."
A couple moments later, he remembered his $25,000 fine earlier this week.
"I'm going to stop," he added. "I've already given up enough money."
Rivers' counterpart, Knicks coach Mike Woodson, thought Smith should use the incident as a lesson.
"He'll learn from it," Woodson said. "I don't think he was trying to hurt the kid. I thought he was trying to clear space. The (officials) saw it differently and he had to exit the game. That's something he will learn from and I'm going to stay in his ear and make sure he learns from it."
Added Smith: "I was trying to draw the foul. He reached in one time, I thought he was going to reach in a second time and I was going to try to get a quick shot off, but they made a call that the refs saw, and there's not really much I can do about it."
"I really try to stay away from getting into it with the officials," Smith said, "so I have to keep my head. That was a bad basketball play on my behalf, just because I got kicked out of the game and my team needed me."
Judging by the fact that the Knicks still won by 14 points, perhaps they didn't need him too much.