{"id":613744,"date":"2026-02-20T13:46:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T13:46:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/613744\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T13:46:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T13:46:12","slug":"how-real-was-playoff-rajon-rondo-for-the-celtics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/613744\/","title":{"rendered":"How real was &#8216;Playoff&#8217; Rajon Rondo for the Celtics?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Feb. 20, 2026, 6:00 a.m. ET<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">How real was &#8216;Playoff&#8217; Rajon Rondo for the Boston Celtics? The University of Kentucky alum made a name for himself first with the Celtics and then later at other stops in his career for playing out of his mind when the lights got brighter in the postseason. And in the NBA, the deeds one does in the playoffs can sometimes be magnified to a degree far beyond their actual impacts in the moment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">But when it comes to the Celtics champion point guard, playoff Rondo was very real, as even the Celtics would later learn firsthand on the wrong side of it when he nearly helped the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/basketball\/nba\/teams\/chicago-bulls\/4\/\" data-autotag=\"405d8bcc-fb36-48bb-8870-95d5603bd7ae\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\">Chicago Bulls<\/a> beat Boston years after he had been dealt away from Boston.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">The hosts of the &#8220;The Big Three NBA&#8221; podcast, A. Sherrod Blakely, Gary Washburn, and Kwani Lunis took some time on an episode of their show to talk it over not too long ago. Check it out below!<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"gnt_em_vp_a gnt_em_vp__yt_a\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=FZNwXqa46rM\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" data-g-r=\"vp_tg\" aria-label=\"Play YouTube video\" data-v-t=\"Blakely: Playoff Rondo Was a Real Thing | Big 3 NBA Podcast\"><img alt=\"\" class=\"gnt_em_vp_img gnt_em_vp_img__yn\" data-g-r=\"lazy\" data-gl-src=\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/FZNwXqa46rM\/maxresdefault.jpg\" onload=\"if(this.naturalWidth&lt;200){this.setAttribute('onload','this.classList.remove(\\'gnt_em_vp_img__yn\\')');this.src=\" https:=\"\" decoding=\"async\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Listen to &#8220;Havlicek Stole the Pod&#8221; on:<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Blue Wire: <a href=\"https:\/\/tiny.ee\/CdKp\" data-t-l=\":b|z|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/tiny.ee\/CdKp<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Need a news break? <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" data-t-l=\":body nav (play)|e|auto spike click:5|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_sp_a\" href=\"https:\/\/play.usatoday.com\/?itm_source=SPIKE&amp;itm_campaign=PLAYSPIKE&amp;itm_medium=ONSITE\">Check out the all new PLAY hub with puzzles, games and more!<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">iTunes: <a href=\"https:\/\/tiny.ee\/RK47\" data-t-l=\":b|z|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/tiny.ee\/RK47<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">YouTube:<a href=\"https:\/\/tiny.ee\/cOW3\" data-t-l=\":b|z|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> https:\/\/tiny.ee\/cOW3<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Feb. 20, 2026, 6:00 a.m. ET How real was &#8216;Playoff&#8217; Rajon Rondo for the Boston Celtics? The University&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":613745,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[72400,7,6,11,72493,72494,72404,72440,72929,72444,72422,72445,72406,81336,72403],"class_list":{"0":"post-613744","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba-playoffs","8":"tag-accessfree","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-nba-playoffs","12":"tag-sstssportsnbaceltics","13":"tag-sstsnceltics","14":"tag-tagbasketball","15":"tag-tagchicago-bulls","16":"tag-tagevergreen-content","17":"tag-tagnational-sports","18":"tag-tagnba","19":"tag-tagoverall-neutral","20":"tag-tagsports-news","21":"tag-taguniversity-of-kentucky","22":"tag-typestory"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116103268416076618","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=613744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613744\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/613745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=613744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=613744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=613744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}