Miami Heat star Duncan Robinson grew up a Boston Celtics fan, but could not hold back rubbing misery in their faces during their Game Seven win over them on Monday night.
The Heat crushed the Celtics hopes of making it to the NBA Finals and being the first team in the playoff history to come back from a 0-3 deficit, with Miami winning on Boston's floor to advance to the NBA Finals.
It was a tough series between the two teams, who also went to seven games in last years Eastern Conference Finals, with a lot of bad blood between the rival teams. Robinson grew up in the area, just an hour north of Boston in Maine, and he hit a big shot in the game to halt any momentum and effectively put the game to bed.
After hitting the shot, he celebrated by looking like he was on the phone, while raising his fingers at the Celtics fans in attendance.When asked on why he did that, Robinson revealed that his number was leaked prior to the game. With some of the texts that he received reading: "Get (expletive), Celtics in seven".
Robinson said on The Old Man and the Three podcast: "I'm like, 'What is going on?' And I'm also p****d because I'm on the heels of this bone-crunching loss, not to mention I missed some shots down the stretch that I'd like to have back. So I'm like in my feels and I'm really worked up about it. I'm like, 'Who the (expletive) gave out my number?
"So then I started thinking and I'm creating all these scenarios in my head, and if I get the chance and I go to the Garden, I'm going to do something. I didn't know what it was going to be. Honestly, probably a little underwhelming, but you would be shocked at how many people that really bothered.
"Some people loved it – it was very polarizing – and then obviously all the people that are bitter back home were like 'Oh, this is so unnecessary,' like, 'classless,' all this stuff, but whatever."
He added that he wanted to taunt the fans, but acknowledged his previously love the team had given him second thoughts.
Robinson said: "I wanted to do it. There's a little bit of an internal conflict, right? Cause you're playing on the floor that you grew up fortunate enough to be able to go to games on and grew up in Celtics country and all this stuff.
"So you have the idea that you want to do it, but I have to be relevant enough in the game to warrant that, and I really toed the line on that because ideally you score like 20, 20-plus and then you're doing it and you have a little more validity. For my 10th point on a back-cut layup, not really what I envisioned."
