The Phoenix Suns and Boston Celtics will not play each other until next season. That is a crying shame.
The two teams rapidly developed a rather heated rivalry in the past month or so, as evidenced by the physical nature of Wednesday night’s game. Kevin Garnett, whom Suns coach Alvin Gentry harshly criticized after the teams last met in late January, was T’d up for jawing with Gentry late in the game, and Rajon Rondo was fouled hard by Jared Dudley for forcing up an unnecessary 3-pointer at the final buzzer.
Afterward, Garnett, Gentry and Celtics coach Doc Rivers had plenty to say.
“Alvin Gentry was asking me for tickets for the first round of the playoffs,” Garnett said of his exchange with the Suns’ coach, “and I told him I’d hook him up. That’s what that was about.
“It’s very uncommon,” Garnett continued, “but they’re an uncommon team.”
Rivers’ found the behavior of Phoenix’s bench to be inappropriate.
“I thought their bench, their coaches, were talking, which I don’t think you should ever do if you have a suit and tie on and actually can’t play,” Rivers said, according to The Boston Globe. “I don’t think you should be doing a lot of talking to players on the floor.”
Paul Pierce, who himself was assessed a technical foul for staring down Channing Frye after a dunk, stated with no room for doubt that this game was personal.
“I think it was something that carried over from the game in Phoenix,” Pierce said. “It got kind of heated down the stretch, and some words were said in the paper on Phoenix’s side. We were hyped for this game, truthfully. We couldn’t wait to get them back in our building after what happened last time and some of the words that were fired at us last time. It was very refreshing to get this win.”
Rivers also said that given the nature of Phoenix’s behavior, he had no issue with Rondo trying to rub it in with a last-second shot.
“I thought that was a function of the technical [that was called on Garnett],” Rivers said. “[Rondo] heard their bench talking, so I had no problem with it.”
Gentry, who said in January that he lost respect for the way Garnett played, had little to say on Wednesday in terms of criticizing Boston.
“You’ve got to give him credit,” Gentry said of Garnett, adding that to say there was a carryover of emotions from the last meeting is simply “making a big deal out of nothing.”
That didn’t seem to be the case on Wednesday, and the quotes from the Celtics’ locker room certainly indicate otherwise.
