The Warriors and Celtics will meet for the first time in Boston on Wednesday night, as the NBA Finals shift to the East for Game 3 in a series tied 1-1.
With a little under two hours to tipoff, the two teams took the floor for pregame warmups but the Warriors ran into an issue: their hoop was a couple inches higher than 10 feet, causing a delay as the Celtics arena staff had to figure out how to lower it to the standard height.
Dubs’ warmups had to be paused because the hoop was too high
pic.twitter.com/UgMkAB4EwE
— Warriors on NBCS (@NBCSWarriors) June 8, 2022
Naturally, Warriors fans jumped to conspiracy theories about gamesmanship, although both teams would’ve had to shoot on that rim in the game itself, but it was an impediment to the Warriors pregame rhythm, which is a big deal for routine-driven NBA players. Steve Kerr had a good sense of humor about the situation, joking that it helped that there was such a late start time to the game giving them plenty of time to fix it.
“It’s a good thing the game starts at midnight.”
Steve Kerr jokes about the height of the hoop being off and the late start time pic.twitter.com/XykamGTX9M
— Warriors on NBCS (@NBCSWarriors) June 8, 2022
NBA Twitter naturally had some fun with the situation, with plenty of jokes about Hoosiers and Bill Belichick somehow being involved in these shenanigans.
Head of Celtics game ops pic.twitter.com/60BvmhtSc0
— Blazer Banter (@blazerbanter) June 8, 2022
https://t.co/fGaJuyMkkj pic.twitter.com/D5QLUVTQTX
— Greg (@gwiss) June 8, 2022
celtics game day staff pre-production meeting pic.twitter.com/XgSpv1XI8g
— jason concepcion (@netw3rk) June 8, 2022
Ultimately this all got taken care of and shouldn’t impact the game, but if the Warriors get off to a slow shooting start you can bet fans will wonder if the rim being off on their end for warmups played a role.