Garnett released a statement earlier Wednesday denying that he had called Villanueva a "cancer patient," maintaining that he had merely referred to him as a "cancer to your team and to our league."
Later, with the C's gearing up to take on the Milwaukee Bucks at the TD Garden, coach Doc Rivers helped to diffuse the situation.
"I'm not going to go off on a tangent on this whole thing," Rivers said. "I actually heard what Kevin said. I was standing right there, and what he released was what he said. I'm going to leave it at that."
The controversy erupted early Wednesday morning, when Villanueva accused Garnett on Twitter of making the remark. Word spread quickly around the social networking site, to the point where Garnett was forced to issue his statement later in the day. It's an incident that never could have unfolded back in Rivers' playing days.
"I don't like the whole tweeting thing," the Celtics' coach said. "I think guys talk on the court, and not that they should or shouldn't, but the fact that we're talking about this, to me, it's just silly. It really is. We had a hell of a game [Tuesday]. We should be talking about basketball. It's amazing to me that this is news now. This is not sports."
Garnett's teammate Ray Allen explained that this is yet another example of a public figure being over-exposed by modern technology. It's something he's become increasingly aware of during his time in the NBA.
"In this day and age, we come across so many people," Allen said. "People with cameras, with cell phones, with Twitter. Social networking's such a huge phenomenon now in this day and age. I've seen people get recorded at bars and put on SportsCenter. So many different things. So you have to protect your circle, and you have to protect what you say all the time. Because when you go anywhere, anyone can hear you and anyone can see you around the world. It's a very fragile world that we live in now."
