Miami Heat: Eastern Finals to reveal levels of rivalry with Boston Celtics

For the Miami Heat and Boston Celtics, the 2020 NBA Eastern Conference Finals will be about more than just who the better team is.

This year, Jimmy Butler received the ultimate birthday gift: the Miami Heat competing in the 2020 NBA Eastern Conference Finals.

But it gets better because they also happen to be squaring off against the Boston Celtics – a familiar foe with a complex history, which begins at the very top with Heat president Pat Riley.

Riley, having assumed his full-time role as president in 2008 (after having also coached Miami since 1995), has had a long-standing beef with Celtics president Danny Ainge since the 1980s. While Riley was the head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers, Ainge was a Boston guard, intent on making things as difficult as possible for the Hollywood ball club. This rivalry continued into the 1990s, with Riley coaching the New York Knicks and Ainge playing for the Phoenix Suns; in fact, things even came to physical blows during that era, with 21 players getting fined or suspended.

Their relationship remained strained into the 2000s, a period most notably marked by Riley issuing a statement including:

"“Danny Ainge needs to shut the f— up and manage his own team. He was the biggest whiner going when he was playing and I know that because I coached against him.”"

(Of course, Ainge’s response of “I don’t care about Pat Riley. He can say whatever he wants. I don’t want to mess up his Armani suits and all that hair goop. It would be way too expensive for me,” didn’t help the situation.)

But front office bad blood is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the connection between these two squads.

There’s the fact that former Celtics star Ray Allen later found himself with the Heat, becoming an icon in South Florida. And Gordon Hayward choosing the Celtics over Miami, during 2017 free agency.

The Heat also managed to scoop up Tyler Herro as their No.13 pick in the 2019 draft, despite the sharp-shooter allegedly making quite an impression in workouts with Boston earlier that summer.

Former Celtics in play for the Miami Heat

Both Jae Crowder and Kelly Olynyk are former Celtics players who happen to each be very much viewed as X-Factors for Miami in his own way (especially during playoff play).

Duncan Robinson is a New England native, who grew up on Boston ball.

And head coaches Brad Stevens and Erik Spoelstra are often compared and contrasted, as they round out some of the league’s youngest coaches.

(Even Boston’s very own Paul Pierce recently had the audacity to claim he had a better career than Heat legend Dwyane Wade.)

So all things considered, it’s safe to say the tension in this series, will be highly palpable.

However, it won’t be all about past slights and present grudges.

While the Heat enter the Eastern Finals coming off a 3-1 victory against the top-seeded Milwaukee Bucks, the Celtics finished off the defending champion Toronto Raptors, 4-3. In other words, both parties are already coming into this round hungry and confident, with the NBA Bubble very obviously serving both teams extremely well.

Butler has had a tremendous postseason run, averaging 23.4 points, 5.8 rebounds and 4.4 assists a game versus the Bucks, including a 40-point standout performance in Game 1. Goran Dragic is showcasing phenomenal basketball in the playoffs after taking back his starting role, averaging 19.8 points per contest in the last round, alongside 4.8 rebounds, 4.4 assists and 1.2 steals.

Game 1 of the ECF is set for 6:30 pm ET on Tuesday, September 15. And despite who comes out the victor, it’s sure to be one heck of a battle.

(But Miami Heat in seven, of course.)