Duncan Robinson’s heel activate the Boston fans he grew up amongst was an quaint case of feeling spurned by his phone getting blown up with not-so-nice messages.
Because the Heat were putting the ending touches on avoiding becoming the primary team in NBA history to blow a 3-0 lead by conquering the Celtics in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals in Boston on Monday, Robinson put in a lay-up to provide the Heat a 94-73 lead, and promptly turned to the fans at TD Garden and hit them with the Hulk Hogan ears move.
Robinson, who grew up in Recent Hampshire, a little bit over an hour outside Boston, explained to JJ Redick and Tommy Alter on the “Old Man & the Three” podcast that he felt conflicted, but ultimately needed to taunt the Celtics fans who leaked his number and blew up his phone with some vulger messages.
“There’s a little bit little bit of internal conflict since you’re playing on the court that you simply were fortunate enough to go to some games growing up,” Robinson began.
He said he planned the entire thing out, concocting in his mind a scenario where he would have been “relevant” enough within the flow of the sport to warrant taunting.
He thought beforehand that may mean scoring 20 points, or hitting an enormous 3-pointer to provide the Heat a double-digit lead, but that he needed to accept pulling out the Hogan move after a reverse layup.
Then he explained what motivated him to rub salt within the wound of his Boston brethren.
“I don’t understand how this happened, but perhaps any person I went to highschool with or something, because I still have the identical number from highschool — my number got put in a gaggle chat somewhere,” Robinson said.
“So after we lose Game 6, my phone is blowing up from all these random Recent England numbers, like ‘Get f–ked, Celts in seven!’
“They usually’re similar to sending memes of the Curt Schilling bloody sock, and it’s all these random numbers. Like 70 texts! And I’m like ‘What is occurring?’ And I’m also pissed because we’re on the heels of this bone-crushing loss, where I missed some shots down the stretch.”
Robinson said he was in his “feels” and “really worked up about it,” wondering “who the f–k gave out my number?” and “how the f–k did this occur?”
Robinson called his gesture “polarizing,” saying some people loved it while others back home felt it was a “classless” move.
He and the Heat at the moment are preparing to tackle the Nuggets within the NBA Finals, which Game 1 on Thursday in Denver.
