Ex-Celtics Forward Suggests Reason For Failed 2010 NBA Finals Run

The Boston Celtics came inches short — four points to be exact — of defeating the Los Angeles Lakers in the 2010 NBA Finals, which can be attributed to a number of reasons.

Former NBA All-Star Rasheed Wallace, a member of that 2010 squad, suggested that there was one primary cause for why the team fell short — and it wasn’t a result of any injury or failure to execute on the floor. Wallace believes it was all self-inflicted and started well before Boston took the floor in Los Angeles for Game 7 that night.

“We came up on the short end, in my opinion, because of some personal (expletive), but we could’ve had it,” Wallace said on Underdog Fantasy’s NBA podcast. “We was right there, great game, just think about it. Most Game 7’s, it’s gonna be, not necessarily a blowout, but it ain’t gonna be that close.”

Wallace added: “They had, for some reason, they had prior beef. That team had prior beef before I got there — between their major guys. I don’t know what the cause of it was or whatever.”

Wallace’s assessment of where the Celtics went wrong isn’t far from what leaked from Boston’s locker room years ago. When Ray Allen, the first domino to fall and begin the end of the “Big Three,” departed and joined the Miami Heat in 2012, the rumored animosity began to unveil.

Allen, who shared issues with the organization’s negligence in settling his unresolved contract status at an earlier time, was also linked to an inside beef with Celtics teammate Rajon Rondo. That theory proved itself to be true through numerous instances in the following years such as Allen not being invited to a 2008 team reunion — hosted by Rondo. Then in 2018, when Paul Pierce’s jersey number was retired in the TD Garden rafters, Allen was not in attendance, which further fueled the presumed year-long beef.

Whatever the cause may have been for Boston’s Banner 18-costing, 83-79 loss, it’s evident that group wasn’t as tight-knit as their 2008 “ubuntu” philosophy previously suggested.