I don’t know much about professional wrestling, but I do know that it couldn’t exist without ‘heels’ — guys that exist to be booed, to make the scripted triumphs of their foes all the sweeter.
They are, in basketball terms, the Washington Generals—if the Washington Generals were staffed by nothing but Bill Laimbeers.
And so, we find the Celtics with a decent chance of making the NBA Finals and playing the heel. They won 64 games this season, and they won their conference by fourteen. Yet, it’s difficult to imagine a team that has been the subject of a greater degree of scoffing and dismissal as the postseason began.