Was there an off-court meltdown for the Boston Celtics after the team fell apart on the court in their game two loss to the Heat in the Eastern Conference finals?
The scene appeared to be pretty chaotic in the Boston Celtics locker-room following their 106-101 loss to the Miami Heat in Gamer 2 of the Eastern Conference finals. Moments after going down 0-2 in a series they were the higher seed for, rumor has it the team had a falling out in the locker-room.
As the story goes, Marcus Smart had some choice words for his teammates following a sloppy offensive effort that gave way to a turnstile defensive showing in the second half on Thursday night:
Marcus Smart is screaming in the #Celtics locker room and there is a bunch of arguing going on. Smart comes out say “y’all on that bullshit!” Team is imploding. Smart is in bathroom and there is still screaming coming from locker room.
— gary washburn (@GwashburnGlobe) September 18, 2020
Yikes. It’s never ideal for teammates to be throwing expletives around a locker room to the point where a beat writer tweeted out the phrase, “Team is imploding”. Then again, if you ask members of the Boston Celtics, this incident doesn’t appear to be one that left any cracks in the foundation:
Too many Bullsh.t rumors out there, this group of guys is one of the best I’ve been around.
— Enes FREEDOM (@EnesFreedom) September 18, 2020
No one can split our family up.
Keep fighting & grinding.
Jayson Tatum on the locker room: “Nothing out of the ordinary. Just talking about the game.”
— Jay King (@ByJayKing) September 18, 2020
Okay then…
The Houdini believes that the answer as to what really happened is somewhere between the “Team is imploding” extreme and “just talking about the game”. The incident was clearly significant enough to catch Gary Washburn’s attention, but it likely isn’t a conversation that will lead to any significant offseason changes.
Instead, the hope is that it leads to a Game 3 turnaround. Miami has shown a willingness and ability to take their throats to the necks of their opponents and has closed out both of their Eastern Conference playoff opponents in five games or less.
If the Boston Celtics don’t show more fight–and that of course doesn’t mean amongst each other but instead at Miami–then this series will be over just as quickly and the prospect of a Heat-Nuggets finals matchup looms uncomfortably large.