LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — There is no such thing as spontaneous combustion in NBA playoff basketball.
Whether it’s an elite team like the Clippers on Tuesday, when Kawhi Leonard and Paul George had a meltdown for the ages in Game 7 against Denver, or this Boston Celtics team that was tearing apart at the seams two night later in a Game 2 faceplant against Miami (106-101) to go down 2-0 in the Eastern Conference Finals, there’s always force being applied by the other team that plays a massive part.
Pipes don’t burst without pressure, and these Heat already showed how capable they are of providing the PSI when they sent Giannis Antetokounmpo and his league-leading Milwaukee Bucks home early in the second round. And as we were reminded in the wild postgame scene near the losing team’s locker room, where the Celtics’ Marcus Smart could be heard unleashing a profanity-laced tirade at his teammates for several minutes amid the reported…
