Kanter blasts ‘spineless’ Tsai in social media tirade

BOSTON — The Nets fully expected to hear it from the TD Garden fans. They probably had no idea the most vicious verbal attacks would come from a Boston player.

Celtics center Enes Kanter — who has been vocal in his disapproval of the Chinese government’s polices — unloaded on Nets owner Joe Tsai Wednesday on social media.

“The owner of @brooklynNets @joetsai1999 is a coward & puppet of the Chinese gov’t,” Kanter tweeted. “Being anti-CCP does NOT mean being anti-Asian. It’s possible to #StopAsianHate & to stand up against the CCP.

“Human rights are not “western” values, they are UNIVERSAL values!

“Spineless Joe Tsai.”

It was about as nasty an attack as a league owner has ever gotten from a player, and that includes the Clippers fiasco with racist Donald Sterling.

Kanter clearly is intimating that Tsai — the co-founder of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba — has enabled China. Tsai, who lives part-time in Hong Kong, caught heat for calling the Hong Kong protesters “separatist” two years ago.

An email seeking a response from Tsai’s camp was not immediately returned.

➤ With his first basket of the game, Kevin Durant (24,388 points) has moved past Allen Iverson (24,368 points) into 25th place on the NBA’s all-time scoring list.

“It means the world,” Durant said. “I dedicated my life to this game at an early age, so I watched all these guys that I’m like passing up. I wanted to be like them. I wanted to be in the NBA like them, and make an impact in the league like them.

“So Iverson, he was the pantheon for me, one of those guys that I emulated every time I went outside and played with my friends. It’s all surreal. I pictured I would be in the league, and had an idea ... but to do it is pretty special.”

Durant grew up in PG County (Md.), watching Iverson — who is from the Tidewater region of Virginia — star at Georgetown. That makes this extra special.

“Yeah, for sure. I really became a huge Iverson fan, obviously, just like everybody else his rookie year,” Durant said. “But seeing him at Georgetown and playing for Coach [John] Thompson and that whole culture that they built there, he was a huge part of that.

Next up is Ray Allen (24,505).