Orlando Magic defeated the Boston Celtics in the 09′ Conference Semi-finals but Rafer Alston slapping Eddie House in an otherwise quiet match made a lot of noise than anything else.
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Rafer Alston was already a legend before he came into the league. He is one of those rare legendary streetball players who were able to make it to the grandest stages of all – the National Basketball Association.
“Skip to my Lou” was playing in the AND1 Mixtape Tour until 1999 after which he made it to the NBA. The 6’2 point guard played in the league from 1999 to 2010 for six different teams, including the 2008–09 Orlando Magic team that made the NBA Finals.
It was Game 2 of that year’s Conference Finals game against the defending champions Boston Celtics where Rafer made a mistake that he thought was the biggest mistake of his career which resulted in him getting out of the league within a year.
Rafer Alston slapped Eddie House in a Conference Finals game just to regret it for life
Alston while defending the Celtics guard Eddie House in transition on the perimeter was agitated as House made a 3 while the Cs were already dominating the game, and he couldn’t stop his shot.
So, Alston slapped the heck out of House’s head for some reason. He talked about the incident when he made a guest appearance on the VladTV podcast last year.
“Eddie House situation to this day has to be the dumbest things I did in my career. He was killing us, and then he makes a shot while I am closing out, and I thought Eddie said something to me after he ran down the court after he makes the shot.” Alston remembered the incident.
He continued, “So my reflex, my reaction was, go down the court. Right, when I did it, he is in my face even though I am being macho, saying something to him. In my head, I’m like, I just f***ed up.”
He further told of when they were going to come face to face after the game. “We shower up, and I came out of the locker room, and he is coming out of his locker room. At this time, I’m like, well, if he wants to do something, then it is going to go down. In my head, I’m thinking, I know they are about to hit me with a suspension; I just screwed up. It was the dumbest thing in the world until this day. The dumbest, most craziest thing I have ever done was that.”
Alston got one match suspension for the incident and missed Game 3 when he was in the starting lineup because of injured Jameer Nelson. Although they won that series, he lost his starting position for the Finals in which Nelson made a comeback but the Lakers won it 4-1 as their first of two consecutive championships.
