It was an emotional moment.
Doc Rivers pulled out his stars Rajon Rondo, Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen in what may have been their final game together. There were hugs and embraces all around on the Celtics bench.
Then Rondo and Garnett kept walking, all the way back to the locker room before the final buzzer sounded — cameras followed them all the way back to the locker room while there was time on the clock.
They snubbed the Heat and did not take part in the traditional post-game hand congratulations and hand shakes with the other team.
Classless way to end it, guys.
A bunch of you just said, “so what? They were pissed off after losing Game 7 like they should be.” You are all the exact same people who would have ripped LeBron James as a disrespectful jerk if he did it. And in the past, when Lebron did skip the postgame handshake, it became a huge deal and he was shredded for it. This is exactly the same thing. You can’t have it both ways.
I get that they were ticked off but I expect them to be mature adults. I expect them to be able to accept defeat with a modicum of grace — Ray Allen did it, Paul Pierce did it, Doc Rivers did it, the other Celtics did it. You don’t have to be happy but you do have to show the opponents that just beat you some respect.
Struggling on defense — their calling card — then walking out on shaking hands is just a sad way to see a fantastic era of Celtics basketball probably come to an end. I just expected more from KG and Rondo.