For years, NBA players complained about the visiting locker room at the Boston Garden, and suspected attempts of Celtics subterfuge.
While visitors no longer worry about Red Aurerbach’s tricks, they’re still not thrilled with the condition of the space.
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On Duncan Robinson’s podcast, “The Long Shot,” the Heat guard ripped into the condition of the now-TD Garden’s facilities. The TD Garden opened in 1995.
“If you walked in and you said, ‘This is a high school locker room,’ I would say, ‘That’s a really [expletive] high school locker room,’” said Robinson.
Bucks guard Pat Connaughton, who was also a guest on the show, piled on with additional criticism. “I’m talking like, the carpet that’s matted down to the point where it’s worn out in areas,” he said. “The lockers are tighter than my shoulders, there’s only enough for 15 guys, maybe 16.”
Connaughton added the “old-school showers” have “rut all over the tile,” and claimed the ice baths are “unusable.”
Robinson also griped about the Garden’s trademark parquet floor. “The parquet, there’s little spaces in between it,” he said. “The fact that they haven’t somehow closed it, it seems like a liability.”
Though Robinson and Connaughton are foes of the Celtics right now, they’re both from the New England area: Connaughton attended St. John’s Prep, and Robinson was born in Maine and went to high school in Massachusetts.
With that in mind, both players are steeped in Celtics history. They don’t think the lackluster locker room conditions are incidental.
“With it being Boston and us being two guys from the New England area and [the Celtics] being our favorite team growing up, it’s got to be on purpose,” said Connaughton.
The Celtics went 28-13 at home last season, and experienced rough losses to the Warriors in Games 4 and 6 of the NBA Finals.
It doesn’t seem like the bad showers impeded Steph Curry’s performance.