Hyde5: The fracas in Celtics postgame locker room, Heat’s 3rd quarters — five thoughts on Game 2 win
Here was the lead paragraph in the Boston Globe on Friday:
"So is this what implosion looks like in person? Screaming in the locker room by multiple parties. Items, sounding like chairs, being thrown, a voice that sounded like Brad Stevens screaming for his players to calm down. A shirtless Marcus Smart walking to the bathroom telling his teammates, “Y’all on that [expletive]!”
That’s what Globe columnist Gary Washburn wrote to tell the scene after the Heat’s 106-101 win Thursday night.
It’s interesting to see what real and raw frustration looks like, but let’s not pretend it means too much in the big picture. It’s a snapshot of the Game 2 frustration. It’s not an uncommon story in sports. It also can help the Celtics if they get it all out — as it did the 2006, Heat whose personality was to yell at each other right up to collecting rings.
Back then, there was an opening-series blowup between Udonis Haslem and James Posey. Then there was a second-quarter squabble between Dwyane Wade and Gary Payton during a Game 4 loss against Chicago after a bad Wade pass to Payton.
“Don’t do that to me,” Payton was overheard shouting to Wade on national TV during a timeout. “I’m not your f------ boy.”
Wade responded in kind, and teammates stepped between the two players before it escalated. Veteran Antoine Walker was seen yelling at Payton in defense of Wade.
Fast-forward to Boston’s postgame match. It told their frustration of Thursday night. It hard to say what it means, if anything, going forward.
2. Stat of Game 2: Bam Adebayo had more field goals in the third quarter (7) than Boston as a team (four).
3. Question of the Heat playoffs: Who’s their leading scorer?
(Pause to think.)
Answer: Goran Dragic at 22.2 points a game. He just made his shots at the end of the game to be noticed more on Thursday, as I wrote in my column about the game.
Boston coach Brad Stevens didn’t just hit the third-quarter blues — “We just shot ourselves in the foot in the third.” He also got to the heart of the end: “Dragic hit the two, hard contested shots over [Daniel] Theis, one at very end of the shot clock.”
4. It’s noteworthy the Heat have come back from 13 and 17 points in the first two games. Let’s not overdo things, though. These comebacks aren’t your daddy’s comebacks. The NBA is set up for comebacks like that with the 3-point line and analytics demanding more shots and more from distance. In other words, those big leads aren’t as big as they look anymore.
5. And what would a big win be without seeing a masked Pat Riley cheering it on. Here’s the video from the Miami Heat account:
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