In recent years, the Miami Heat and the Boston Celtics have always seemed to get in each other’s way. While the two franchises have long been powers in the Eastern Conference, Miami and Boston have met up in the conference finals in three of the last four years, with the Heat coming out on top twice.
There’s some real animosity there, to the point that one Heat lifer said “f*ck Bill Russell” in the lead-up to a game. On an episode of “The OGs Show,” Bam Adebayo recalled a story about a time that Udonis Haslem got a little riled up during a pregame speech and pointed to Russell’s uniform hanging in the rafters in Miami — the NBA retired his number, 6, following his death in 2022.
Udonis Haslem said ‘F**k Bill Russell’ in his pregame speech to his teammates after seeing Russell’s jersey retired in Miami’s arena
“Tell me when you gonna see a Miami Heat jersey hanging in Boston”
(🎥 @theOGsShow / https://t.co/J0RgDtrj2E) pic.twitter.com/ktSdbkHioW
— NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) December 27, 2023
“I had to repent that,” Haslem recalled. “I love Bill, no disrespect to Bill. I love Bill, he just caught that stray, no disrespect … but will you ever see a Miami Heat jersey hanging in Boston’s rafters? Respect to Bill Russell, I love him. Why the f*ck he got to hang in here? The sh*t that come out of people’s mouths when we playing there? I might not take back what I said, now that I think about it. The sh*t that they say to us…”
“Bill had to go through it!” Adebayo interjected.
“Yeah, okay, cool,” Haslem responded.
Now, this story did not go over especially well, as Russell’s pretty universally considered one of the greatest players and people in NBA history, which is why his number is hanging in the rafters in every arena in the league. Additionally, it was pointed out numerous times that Miami famously has a non-Heat player’s jersey number hanging in the rafters, as Pat Riley had the franchise retire Michael Jordan’s No. 23 ahead of his final game against the team even though he never suited up for them.
A tweet pointing out that second thing caught Jaylen Brown’s attention, and ended up in his likes on Twitter.
Jaylen Brown liked this Tweet response 👀
Thoughts? pic.twitter.com/FPEB4tDROt
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) December 27, 2023
Following all of this, Adebayo addressed the attention that all of this drew, saying that he has nothing but respect for Russell.
Bam Adebayo on reaction from Celtics fans from the UD-Bill Russell story: We knew they'd be upset but I felt it was a great story to share…We all respect Bill Russell for what he's done for us as players and as black people and all the stuff he had to go through. Just to clear… pic.twitter.com/vrM1bgMKFd
— Brendan Tobin (@Brendan_Tobin) December 27, 2023
