Knicks point guard Raymond Felton took a nasty fall on a rebound try 7:56 left in the third quarter Wednesday. He landed on his elbow and it looked painful.
“Honestly, my elbow don’t hurt at all,” Felton said. “It’s my ribs on the right side. It was pretty bad so that’s what I’m dealing with right now.”
Felton, who vowed to play Friday against Washington after a day of rest, returned with 9:55 left in the 110-81 rout of the Nets at the Garden.
“I want to play. I want to be out there,” he said. “You still got to tear my legs off my limbs for me not to go out and play.”
The Knicks got huge lifts off the bench from Iman Shumpert, who excelled defensively with five steals, two of them in a game-changing 10-0 run at the end of the first quarter, and from Tim Hardaway Jr., who had been listed as questionable with a right ankle sprain but scored 17.
“I thought Iman set the tone from a defensive standpoint when we went to the small ball with the second unit,” coach Mike Woodson said. “We benefited from it big time.”
Hardaway said he was just trying to energize.
“Just on the defensive end, offensive end, running the lanes, trying to do whatever I can,” Hardaway said. “Shump did a great job setting the tone for the whole entire team when he came out there and got a couple of deflections and was pushing the ball.”
The NBA honored longtime referee Dick Bavetta, who worked his 2,633rd game — which is one more Cal Ripken Jr. had in his illustrious streak.
“He should be honored,” Woodson said. “Any time a guy that’s been in a profession that long, it’s amazing to me.
The fact that he’s still running up and down, his eyes are still sharp. He still sees things on the floor and he should be honored, I think. He’s a special individual. I’ve always liked Dick. I think he’s a helluva referee.”
Woodson was asked why the Nets seemed to thrive in a small-ball lineup when the Knicks did not.
“I don’t know. I can’t answer that. Maybe the key guys that we lost were more valuable to our team versus what they lost,” Woodson said.