Despite the local New England connection, Pat Connaughton and Duncan Robinson didn’t share kind reviews of TD Garden.
Specifically, the Bucks guard and the Heat guard, respectively, spoke of the visiting locker room whenever their teams played the Celtics. Boston eliminated Milwaukee and Miami in the Eastern Conference semifinals and finals, respectively.
Connaughton, an Arlington native and St. John’s Prep grad, was a guest on Robinson’s “The Long Shot” podcast on Aug. 11, and when talking about visiting locker rooms, he said, “The Boston Celtics locker room is the worst visiting team locker room in the entire NBA,” as transcribed by The Boston Globe’s Amin Touri.
Connaughton added: “I’m talking like, the carpet that’s matted down to the point where it’s worn down in areas, the lockers are tighter than my shoulders, there’s only enough for maybe 15 guys. “It’s like the old-school showers that’s got the rut all over the tile, and there are those old-school ice baths that are not usable, stacked up on top of each other, that prevent you from being able to use any other showers, so there are only two available ones.”
Robinson, who has plenty of New England connections, didn’t hold back on his review of the Celtics’ visiting locker room.
“If you walked in and you said, ‘This is a high school locker room,’ I would say, ‘That’s a really [expletive] high school locker room,’ ” Robinson said.
The next time the Celtics and Heat match up will be on Oct. 21 at American Airlines Arena, and Miami will head to the TD Garden on Nov. 30. It should promise to be an interesting encounter as the Heat haven’t seem to gotten over a controversial call in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals.
