From late January to early February, the east coast of North America and the Great Lakes Region experienced three consecutive blizzards.
Toronto, Cleveland, New Jersey – a back-to-back schedule packed the Celtics ' schedule. Boston achieved a record of 38 wins and 9 losses during this campaign, ranking first in the league, but only those in the locker room truly know the hardships they endured on the road.
When they arrived at Toronto Pearson International Airport Late Night on January 31, the Canada customs computer system malfunctioned. The entire team waited for two hours in the freezing arrival hall with their luggage.
The following evening, after watching the New England Patriots win Super Bowl LIII live on TV in their hotel room, the team hadn't even had time to celebrate for their city rivals when they found themselves bogged down in a quagmire set up by Toronto head coach Kevin O'Neal at Air Canada Centre. Vince Carter and Jalen Rose took turns wearing down the Celtics on the wings, and the Celtics barely scraped through the ordeal.
They chartered a plane overnight to Ohio, but a blizzard from Lake Erie blocked the highways, and the team bus broke down halfway there. When the team arrived at Gund Arena in Cleveland, there were less than fifty minutes left before the tip-off.
The heating in the locker room took forever to heat up, and everyone's calves were stiff from getting off the bus. With two minutes left in the fourth quarter and the score close, Dwyane Wade made a sudden stop and change of direction at the top of the arc, and his right calf muscle suddenly tightened. He was a fraction too slow, and rookie LeBron James stole the ball from the wing and launched a fast break, which was followed up by Carlos Boozer's putback dunk, stealing a victory in Cleveland's home arena.
Two days later, the match moved to Continental Airlines Arena in New Jersey, where it turned into a wrestling match.
Byron Scott packed Yao Ming, Elton Brand, and Kirilenko around the three-second zone, and the two teams battled all the way into overtime. The Continental Airlines Arena's wooden floor was originally the home ice surface of the NHL's New Jersey Devils, but the temperature in New Jersey rose those two days, and the arena's ventilation system wasn't running at full capacity, so a thin layer of dampness rose on the floor surface.
With 14 seconds left in overtime, the Celtics were down by one point. Wade drove hard past Andrei Miller from the right side, his right forefoot landing on a damp, sweaty wooden board at the edge of the three-second zone. His shoe slipped, making a screeching sound, and Wade lost his balance, sliding out of bounds with the ball in his arms.
The sideline referee blew his whistle and crossed his arms to indicate a traveling violation. Wade sat on the cold floor, biting his soaked jersey collar and panting heavily, watching helplessly as victory slipped through his fingers.
What was even more frustrating than losing the game was my strange shooting touch those few days.
After three consecutive away games, the entire team's outside shooting accuracy completely plummeted.
Chris Paul Pierce pulled up for a shot at a 45-degree angle on the right side. The ball hit the metal neck joint at the back of the rim with a dull thud, making the entire rim vibrate and bounce back. The ball bounced directly outside the free-throw line.
Raja Bell received the ball unguarded in the corner and shot two consecutive airballs that bounced off the front edge of the rim.
Even the usually reliable Kevin Garnett stepped up to the free-throw line and only made one of two attempts.
Back in the visiting team's locker room, the players sat shirtless on the bench, tearing off the white tape from their ankles. Ben Wallace, usually a quiet, hard-working man, ripped off his black headband and slammed it against a metal locker with a thud. Rubbing his knuckles, numb from the impact of the basket, he grumbled and suspected the visiting team's staff had tightened the spring bolts under the rim with a wrench before the game.
In the eyes of seasoned NBA veterans, this kind of off-court tactic is no secret.
Auerbach the Cardinal had mastered this tactic back in the Old Boston Garden. The loose wooden floor on the left side of the three-second area in the old arena, which was deliberately left unrepaired; the valve in the visiting team's shower room that only dispensed cold water no matter how you turned it; and the tactical whiteboard in the visiting team's locker room that had been sawed in half by a carpenter—these stories have been circulating in the league for decades.
In some away games, to counter strong teams with accurate jump shots, the equipment manager will tighten the shock-absorbing spring washers on the back of the rim by half a turn during the pre-game inspection of the basket frame. This tightened double-layer iron rim is as hard as a rock, and the ball will bounce high into the air if it only grazes the edge slightly.
Even worse, some deliberately raise the Hoop level by one or two degrees when installing it. The difference of a few millimeters is barely noticeable to the naked eye, but the away team's shooters, who have practiced their shooting muscle memory all summer, will completely lose their focus once they step onto the court.
If you can't make outside shots, you can only rely on your muscles to force your way into the paint.
In subsequent away games against Miami and Orlando, head coach Rick Carlisle simply erased all the mid-to-long-range screen-and-roll plays from the whiteboard. The entire team pushed forward on defense and relentlessly attacked the basket on offense. Relying on Ben Wallace and Tyson Chandler Chandler's offensive rebounding and putbacks, coupled with tireless fast breaks, they chipped away at the game point by point on the road.
It was during this grueling stretch of games that the Boston duo propelled their individual statistics to the top of the league.
During this period, Garnett averaged 28 points, 13.5 rebounds, and 8 assists per game, and topped the league's weekly MVP race for four consecutive weeks. The moment Garnett grabbed a defensive rebound was the starting signal for the entire team's counterattack.
Garnett had an extremely strong sense of territory around the basket. During the game, whenever the referee called a traveling violation or an offensive three-second violation, even after the whistle had blown, and the opposing perimeter player habitually took a shot at the basket to try and get a feel for the ball, Garnett would jump with all his might from the three-second zone and slap the dead ball into the stands at the highest point, never letting the visiting team's shooter see the ball go into the net.
In live ball possession, once Garnett's long arms catch the backcourt rebound, he will look up and scan the center line before landing. He grabs the ball with his right hand, pulls it behind his ear, and swings his arm like a quarterback on a football field to throw a long crosscourt pass.
As soon as Wade crosses the midline and accelerates, Garnett's long pass can fly over the heads of retreating defenders and into the frontcourt.
Sometimes, if the pass is slightly too strong and the ball goes off to the sideline, Wade can still sprint at full speed, jump off one foot, catch the ball above chest level, and then hang on the rim for a one-handed dunk.
The connection between Garnett and Wade became a regular feature of the top five plays in American sports news in February.
Pierce increased his three-point attempts, significantly increasing his outside shooting in transition offense. Whenever the opponent retreated half a step into the paint out of fear of Wade's drives, Pierce would receive the ball on the wing, just a step beyond the three-point line, and without even adjusting, he would pull up and shoot. He averaged 26 points, 4 rebounds, and 4.5 assists per game.
Whenever he drew a foul after breaking through the defender in a half-court game, before stepping to the free-throw line, Pierce would habitually pull up the waistband of his wide shorts with both hands, then raise his right hand to push aside the green headband that was pressing down above his eyebrows. With this unexpected pull-up three-pointer and the step-back jumper from the elbow area of the free-throw line, Pierce repeatedly helped the team out of scoring droughts on away nights when his teammates were missing shots.