NBA

Knicks will try to prove doubters wrong vs. Celtics

BOSTON — If you looked around, you could imagine and envision a genuine, honest-to-goodness basketball game of serious import. Scalpers bravely waved tickets outside TD Garden. Fans in their Garnett jerseys and their Rondo jerseys and their Pierce jerseys and their Ray Allen jerseys filtered in, dutifully. Shaquille O’Neal strode in fashionably late and shook Knicks coach Mike D’Antoni’s hand. Amar’e Stoudemire put on his uniform, played 20 minutes.

D’Antoni said, one last time: “We are taking this very seriously.”

The TV cameras were on. The radio mikes were on. The Celtics had to open their spillover press room a couple of days early. And by all indications, no matter how this game ended, the NBA planned on including it in its official record books for keeps. Forever.

Serious stuff.

VECSEY’S EASTERN CONFERENCE PREVIEW

Of course, then you took a few steps back and it all changed, like throwing a different lens on your Konica. Those guys wearing the uniform tops they bought at Modell’s? Those were the only versions of Garnett, Pierce, Rondo and Allen anyone would see last night. Carmelo Anthony sat for the Knicks. Chauncey Billups sat for the Knicks. You knew damn well that D’Antoni would have removed Stoudemire and ushered him to safety at the first sign of need.

A prefab preview, is what it was, this 112-102 Celtics win.

And even with all of that, there was enough buzz lingering around the Garden, and around this city, to portend what Sunday will bring. It’s when we get our first Knicks-Celtics playoff series in 21 years. It’s when we get a postseason collision between Boston and New York City and all the attendant civic dramas that will bring.

“Boston is still the defending conference champion,” D’Antoni said, “and they’ll be that until someone takes it away from them.”

Nobody much believes the Knicks will be that team, and there was nothing that happened last night that was going to change anyone’s mind. Charles Barkley said bluntly what most feel quietly: The Knicks are patsies, fodder, sparring partners and the Celtics, even limping to the finish line, wounded ever since the Kendrick Perkins trade, have drawn the perfect panacea.

Doc Rivers doesn’t necessarily buy that.

“We’ve really only played them but once,” the Celtics’ coach said, knowing the only time his team saw the team they’ll face across the next couple weeks came March 21 in New York, a game the Knicks dominated until the Celtics decided it was their turn to dominate, winning 96-86.

And knowing this:

“The Knicks,” he said, “have three very, very, very good players. And you have to account for that.”

That’s a lonely take in this town, where there are far more pressing concerns elsewhere, where the Bruins challenge their ancient rivals from Montreal starting tonight in the Stanley Cup playoffs, where Tom Brady cried for TV cameras. And where yesterday’s constant rain was interpreted as a blessing from above, a celestial message that God himself is tired of watching the 2-9 Red Sox kick the ball around.

The Celtics, 41-14 at the trade deadline and 15-12 since? The Knicks are a means to an end. The Knicks are a cure-all, a fix-it, a chance to work out kinks and shake off rust and take a look under the hood and have a look at the engine.

Everyone knows that. Most everyone, anyway.

“What I know about the playoffs,” Stoudemire said, smiling, “is that superstars are born in the playoffs.”

That was more promise than prediction, but it’s a fine place to start with all of this.

“There’s no question this is going to be a big challenge for us,” D’Antoni said last night.

And of course he’s right, of course he’s not just posing, of course the Knicks will go into Sunday night as overwhelming underdogs until proven otherwise, where last night was a junior varsity kick-start to the serious business at hand.

That’s OK. There will be plenty of time to ponder the real thing. There will be plenty of real basketball soon enough. The dress rehearsal was nice. What’s coming will be a lot better.

michael.vaccaro@nypost.com