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Dub Nation HQ Rooting Guide: Boston Celtics (2) vs Miami HEAT (8), plus open thread

May 17, 2023

Marcus Smart. Reckless play injured Steph Curry and nearly took him out for the year.
Blake Griffin. You probably didn’t remember that Blake was on the Celtics… Essential part of the rival Lob City Clippers, as their most punchable face. We studied that rivalry before in detail, but by now feelings have cooled as Blake’s career took a nose-dive due to injuries and bad teams. A couple of years ago, a healthy plurality of Dub Nation still wished him ill, but even more just plain don’t care and so he does NOT officially qualify for Warriors Villain.

Grant Williams raised eyebrows with his comment that Boston was the better team in the 2022 Finals.
Ex-GM Danny Ainge started a Boston tradition of announcing after every big NBA trade that he offered a better package that was rejected.

UPDATE (2022-05-27): Ainge also made the baffling and factually incorrect statement that he’d never heard of Celtics fans being racist in 26 years.

Jaylen Brown went to Cal if you care about that.
- Abaddon writes: in the great Steph/Kyrie duel in 2018(?) Steph was seen visibly flapping his right hand at Brown after hitting a three over and around his defense. He also was jawing at Brown. It was a while ago and I’m not sure if there’s been anything since, but it is so rare to see Steph directly taunting someone that it sticks out in my memory.
- Jaylen seems to drifting into Kyrie-lite territory. He also seems to be sowing all kinds of internal turmoil in BOS, which you may regard as uncool or helpful for GSW.

The 2022 Finals were bitterly fought and the BOS fans really brought the bile in antagonizing Draymond Green. But that’s sports for you. It worked to throw Dray off his game and also made Steph elevate his game in the legendary Game 4.
Long history of racism from Celtics fans.
Isaiah Thomas played through his sister’s death and various injuries at the cost of his career and was immediately dumped by BOS for Kyrie Irving. Pretty shocking move even if the league’s motto is “It’s Just A Business”.
Celtics fans talk a lot about their many championships, omitting the fact that they’ve won 1 championship since 1986, and most of the previous ones came from Red Auerbach ripping off other hobbyist owners when the league was eight teams that could barely get a highlight on TV.

Jimmy Butler. Famously couldn’t get along with the Minnesota Timberwolves management, couldn’t get the most out of Andrew Wiggins through tough love, and caused so much chaos that it forced trades and moves that put MIN in such a dreadful position that MIN had to make a desperation move to keep Karl-Anthony Towns from leaving: the glorious trade of Andrew Wiggins and the 2021 Top 3 protected 1st round pick (#7 Kuminga) for KAT’s pal D’Angelo Russell. Thanks, Jimmy.
Kevin Love. Childhood pal of Klay Thompson. Legendary near-trade target for Klay Thompson, Draymond Green and Harrison Barnes. The #2 free agent whom LeBron grabbed for his Superfriends 2.0 (v 1.0 in CLE), who became a scapegoat for all CLE’s problems.

MIA have a few players that Dub Nation has fantasized about getting for years: ~~Dewayne Dedmon~~, Omer Yurtseven, Kevin Love.
- Dilly writes: I believe that Dewayne Dedmon had his own little meltdown on the Miami bench & threw something & was waived and/or traded & waived and was later picked up by Philly. I think.

Udonis Haslem. Raised a whole fuss about Draymond picking the Celtics to advance.

None really. They did have the annoying LeBron / Wade / Bosh Super Friends team, but that one horribly underperformed so much that it provided some entertainment. Dwyane Wade has been pretty cool in retirement, and they also got dumped by LeBron after he strip-mined the town, so it’s hard to hold a grudge. They also gave the Lakers a scare in the 2020 Disney Cup despite a rash of Heat injures, and also got within one shot of upsetting the Celtics in 2022.