If the NBA season ended today, we’d get a first-round matchup between the 2-seed Boston Celtics and the 7-seed Miami Heat. It would be a really fun series, as the Celtics are hobbled right now and the two franchises have a whole lot of history and bad blood between them.
Some of that bad blood stems from the 2011 postseason, when Dwyane Wade was accused of purposely injuring Rajon Rondo’s left elbow by pulling him to the ground and having it pop out of place. You can watch the incident here, but as you can guess considering it involves someone’s elbow popping out, it’s not for the faint of heart.
We’re seven years past the incident but noted Boston sports fan Bill Simmons still isn’t over it. Simmons tweeted about a Celtics-Heat first round matchup this year and didn’t exactly make a subtle implication that he thinks Wade would go out of his way to hurt someone.
Houston drawing Utah in round one doesn’t seem fair.
I’m already getting emotionally prepared for a Miami/Boston series with no Kyrie and no Smart plus the unknown Celtic that Dwayne Wade is going to *accidentally* injure. https://t.co/MYPsM82RPI
— Bill Simmons (@BillSimmons) March 21, 2018
Even if this is meant to be taken as a joke, accusing someone of purposely injuring someone else is a serious accusation. Word of it got back to Wade, who wasn’t especially happy that Simmons made such a claim.
It may be you🤷🏾♂️ https://t.co/Jm3U2UaZ0b
— DWade (@DwyaneWade) March 21, 2018
There’s still a ton of time left this season, and while the Celtics seem to be pretty squarely locked in at the 2-seed (they’re five games back of Toronto and 6.5 games up on Cleveland), there’s some room for the Heat to move around at the bottom of the conference. But if that movement doesn’t happen, no one will be less happy about watching a series between the two teams than Simmons for a few reasons.
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