Boston Celtics: The 25 Most Hated Opponents
By Bill Speros
17. Tree Rollins
“Tree Bites Man.” Yep, that was an actual headline in the Boston Herald the day after the Celtics and Hawks met in a first-round playoff game in 1983. In that game, Ainge went low and tried tackle Tree Rollins. It was typical for the feisty Ainge to go after someone with an eight-inch and 60-pound weight advantage. In this case, Rollins’ bite was far worse than his bark. Ainge shrieked in pain from the ensuing tangled pile of bodies.
“We got into a little scuffle out on the court by the foul line and he almost bit my finger off,” Ainge said, according to Sports Illustrated’s Ian Thomsen in a 2008 article. “He bit it all the way through. I had to get two stitches.” He raised his right hand to reveal the scar on his middle finger. “Usually, you don’t put stitches on a human bite,” he said. “But just to keep everything in there together, they had to put a couple of stitches in there.” Did he realize that someone was biting him? “Oh, yeah, I knew it was happening,” he said. “Oh, yeah.”
Next: No. 16 -- Melo