If I was back in a timely-posting mode, I might wax poetic about the unlikely spectacle of Nate Robinson — absolutely thriving under Mike D’Antoni — putting the Knicks on his back in Wednesday’s fourth quarter against Atlanta. Instead, let’s look back on Tuesday’s events in Los Angeles, when Charlotte’s 117-110 double OT win over the Lakers was marred by the incident above. “After 21 years of covering the NBA, I think I know the difference between rugged and dirty,” wrote the Charlotte Observer’s Rick Bonnell. “What Andrew Bynum did to Gerald Wallace Tuesday was dirty.”

Bynum threw a blatant elbw and hip-check to keep Wallace from reaching the basket in the fourth quarter. I get it that every play in that quarter mattered “ it did go to overtime, after all “ but there were many things Bynum could have done to avert Wallace dunking. Most of them would not have involved Wallace going to the hospital.

Hopefully, this was about youthful indiscretion, not malicious intent. Because as talented as Bynum is, I™d hate to think his destiny is to end up a hockey goon.