NBA

‘Need that little dirtiness’: Kanter gets tough as Booker tossed

PHOENIX — Knicks center Enes Kanter was a bully inside, scoring 20 points with 10 boards, but his blocked shot on a Devin Booker drive was the best damage he wrought Friday night.

A Kanter-Booker dustup led to the ejection of the Suns star in the Knicks’ 107-85 victory at Talking Stick Resort Arena.

Kanter blocked Booker on a drive and trash talked and glared at the Suns’ 2015 lottery pick. It was likely payback for the flagrant foul Booker put on Tim Hardaway Jr., who had to leave for the locker room briefly.

As Kanter stared down Booker, the Suns guard shoved him into Greg Monroe, who reflexively pushed Kanter like he was a pinball. Kanter went after Monroe as chaos ensued.

When order was restored, Kanter received a technical and so did Booker, his second of the night, leading to an automatic ejection with 4:03 left in the third quarter.

“We needed that juice, we needed that energy. I know I’m going to get fined, and I’ll take the win,” Kanter said. “We need that little dirtiness. We needed that. It fired us up, the whole bench up. We just took it from there.”

Counting the win in Brooklyn, the Knicks are 3-4 in the seven straight road games they have played but still at 22-28 overall.

“We talked about it before the game, we were going to play smart, hard and with energy, and we did that tonight,” Kanter said. “There’s nobody out there messing with my teammate. If they do it, they’re doing wrong.”

Knicks coach Jeff Hornacek said he talked to Kanter before the game about playing even more tenacious than his usual game.

“He’s tough, but I wanted him to play tougher,” Hornacek said.

Before the Kanter incident, Booker got nasty on Hardaway, who raced in for a fast break. Booker reached out, smacked his shoulder and dragged him down, with Hardaway crashing into the stanchion, then the court. He stayed down for a few minutes, and it was a scary moment especially because he is recovering from a stress reaction.

The play was ruled a flagrant foul, but Hardaway didn’t blame Booker, saying it was “a no-layup rule” foul. Hardaway said his neck was bothered on the play but shook it off and returned to action.