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NBA playoffs 2023: The Miami Heat and Boston Celtics have postseason history -- a lot of it

Editor's note: This story was originally published in May 2022 and has been updated to reflect Boston and Miami facing each other in the 2023 Eastern Conference finals.

To understand the depths of animosity between the Miami Heat and Boston Celtics entering this year's NBA Eastern Conference finals, you have to go back to an otherwise nondescript regular-season night in March 2013.

That night in New Orleans, a Heat public relations official approached the team's traveling media contingent with a message from team president Pat Riley that would immediately go into the annals of history.