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Kevin Garnett Open Hand Slaps Bill Walker In The Neck After The Knicks Beat The Celtics

The lockout-delayed NBA season started in rousing fashion this afternoon, with the Knicks earning a 106-104 win over the Paul Pierce-less Celtics. Carmelo Anthony scored 37 for the Knicks, helping overcome a sensational game by Celtics point guard Rajon Rondo (31 points, 13 assists, five steals).

And things even stayed interesting until after the final buzzer sounded. The Celtics’ Kevin Garnett missed a last-second shot to tie things up, and in the middle of the Knicks’ celebration in front of a euphoric Madison Square Garden home crowd, Garnett and the Knicks’ Bill Walker shared some Christmas anti-cheer:

Apparently there’s some bad blood there going back to the players’ days as teammates, and it appears it doesn’t take much for those tensions to resurface (then again, this is Garnett, so something’s almost always about ready to boil over). And while this never got going enough to reach full-on “fight” status, the intensity is welcome, and if the rest of the season plays out like the first game, fans disillusioned by the lockout figure to be won back over pretty quickly.