As Paul Pierce laid on the ground with a banged-up elbow, Kevin Garnett walked over to pay his respects to an ailing teammate.  Quentin Richardson decided to pay the two gentleman a visit. (CelticsBlog)

“I was trying to get over there to take the ball out of bounds and he started to talk to me so I talked back,” explained Richardson. “I don’t have any business talking to him (Pierce), he was on the ground crying. I don’t know what was going on, two actresses over there that’s what they are.”

So he was just trying to get the ball so he could take it out of bounds, eh?  Then why did he walk to the left of Pierce when the referee, and the ball, were to the right of Pierce?  Why did he hover over Pierce, rather than going after the ball.  I’ll let Q tell you why, in his own words.

“”I don’t like them [Pierce and Garnett], and they know it.” Thanks for enlightening us, Captain Obvious.

"Getcho filthy hands off me, bro."

He had no business talking to Pierce, or even standing over him, yet he decided to do both anyway.

“I said to Jermaine (O’Neal), ‘he’s ok’, because I knew nobody touched him. Is he taking another break like he does so many times? Sometimes he falls like he’s about to be out for the season and then he get’s right up, that’s all I said.”

So Pierce is lying on the ground (and, according to Pierce, really feeling hurt: “My shoulder hit the same spot that I hurt all season. It has happened a couple of times. A pinch nerve in there, kind of numbed my whole arm up.”), Q really doesn’t have any idea what type of pain Pierce is feeling, and Q starts chirping, telling his teammates Pierce is fine? I have a problem with that, a big problem. Garnett didn’t like it either, not one bit, and the two started to share words.  I’m pretty sure they weren’t pleasantries.  After that, Udonis Haslem ran into the skirmish and a Major League Shove-fest started.  As Garnett turned his back to the melee in favor of checking on Pierce one last time, he was hit with a small shove in his back.

It was then that KG glanced over his left shoulder and let loose an elbow that smacked into Richardson’s jaw.  Then Jermaine O’Neal tackled Glen Davis (who still thought he was auditioning for The Blind Side), all hell broke loose, and finally Garnett was ejected.

The first technical was for taunting with Richardson (Richardson also received a technical), and the second was for the elbow that landed smack dab in the middle of Richardson’s jaw.

So will Garnett be suspended? He threw an elbow at an opponent’s face, and it landed. That would seem to make it an almost automatic suspension. But there’s another side to it, a better side for Celtics fans. He was provoked by an instigator, Richardson, looking to do nothing but cause trouble. Not only that, but it looks like Haslem was shoving Garnett in the back as Garnett tried to tend to Pierce. That was when KG threw the elbow. Can you fault a guy for throwing an elbow while hands are being laid on him from behind (pause)?

Still, as biased as I am, my bet is that he’ll be suspended. I don’t think any suspension needs to be handed out (why alter a series for a scrum that wasn’t even that bad?), but the league has been wuss-ified lately to the point that an elbow to the face is almost automatically a suspension.

As for Quentin Richardson? Despite being the instigator and the biggest piece of crap in the entire melee, he’ll be playing in game two. I hope Pierce drops 95 on him.