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Time may heal most wounds, but the Kevin Garnett-Ray Allen freeze evidently needs some more time to thaw.
The two former Celtics were in the same building Sunday night for the ceremony honoring the NBA’s 75th anniversary team. When Allen was introduced, he walked by a frosty-looking Garnett to pound fists with LeBron James.
Paul Pierce, who was standing by Garnett’s side, opted to look straight up, perhaps at the jumbotron, as Allen was walking by.
Garnett has not shied away from his feelings about Allen after the guard left the Celtics for James and the Heat in 2012. The Celtics, who won an NBA title in 2008 with a Big 3 of Garnett, Pierce and Allen, had just lost to the Heat in the 2012 Eastern Conference Finals when Allen ditched Boston for Miami.
“I’ve been very vocal on my distaste for what Ray did, that was real for everybody that was involved,” Garnett told the Boston Globe in 2020. “That’s real life. We was in a real beef with Miami at the time and very similar to if someone was to go from the Lakers to the Celtics, and vice versa. No one will speak on the underlyings of it, but that was a real thing. Miami and Boston. That was a real thing.
“Ray made a decision; I wouldn’t expect Ray to be at anything of mine. And vice versa. If I see him, I’ll speak. I’ll say hello to his family like always. He knows that decision altered and made us all feel different.”
Allen went on to win another title with the Heat in 2013 while the Celtics lost in the first round that year, leading to the trade of Garnett and Pierce to the Nets.
All three stars went on to be inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame, but the relationship between Garnett and Allen has remained cold.
“I never had any ill will towards Kevin,” Allen said on “The Cedric Maxwell Podcast” in 2020. “This is not a two-way argument or debate. This is him. He dug his heels in the sand and he decided I’m not a brother of his anymore and so I said, ‘Cool.’”’
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