BOSTON, MA - MAY 06: Paul Pierce #34 of the Boston Celtics has a word with Rajon Rondo #9 of the Boston Celtics in the second half during a game against Atlanta Hawks in Game Four of the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals during the 2012 NBA Playoffs on May 6, 2012 at TD Garden in Boston, Massachusetts. (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)The Boston Celtics missed an opportunity to close out the Atlanta Hawks on Tuesday night, dropping an 87-86 road affair that gives Atlanta the chance to knot their first-round series in Boston on Thursday night. Near misses like the one Boston had at Philips Arena tend to stick in a player's craw, especially when the player singlehandedly got his flagging team back into the game and conjured a chance to win it out of thin air, only to see it end in a trap, a turnover and a loss, extending a series that player felt his team already had won.
So, yeah, Rajon Rondo — whom NBA fans know to be a quiet, reserved and occasionally volatile sort as it is — was a little bit salty when he spotted a cameraman filming him after Boston's Tuesday night loss:
While waiting to take the podium for his postgame media session, Rondo noticed a cameraman filming his idle chatter. The point guard pointed at the cameraman (which, if I was the cameraman, would probably have me thinking, "Oh, crap") before walking over to voice his displeasure.
"Listen — how many times I'mma tell you?" Rondo asks. "You are not filming me. I told you to quit filming. Do not film me. I'm not doing an interview right now. I just told you."
The progression is simple — Emotional Dude fresh off a tough loss wants to have a couple of moments with some people close to him before he steps up to the podium and talks about not having his best performance and his team dropping a winnable playoff game; Emotional Dude sees a camera encroaching on those moments; Emotional Dude responds in an emotional fashion; Emotional Dude comes off looking like kind of a jerk, especially after "Inside the NBA" host Ernie Johnson tags the encounter with a terse "Whatever."
You can understand Rondo's frustration, and he didn't escalate the hostilities beyond a reasonable level — any reasonable person sees the difference between this and stuff like the run-ins that guys like Randy Johnson and Kenny Rogers had with cameramen — but he's pretty clearly in the wrong here.
http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nba-ball-dont-lie/rajon-rondo-cameraman-clash-over-post-game-5-161311234.html;_ylt=AhDy.3OoO_DUWzJqNCAcCOu8vLYF
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