Love and Hate, Inspiration and Strength In Boston

On the whole, it was one of the most emotional nights in recent Boston sports history.

The Celtics beat the Wizards on Causeway Street in the toughest game of the playoffs thus far, battling back to an exhausting overtime win on the back of a broken — literally and figuratively — Isaiah Thomas. Tuesday was what would have been his late sister's 23rd birthday.

More eyes may have been on Yawkey Way, where the Red Sox faced suddenly fierce rival Baltimore as well as national perceptions of racist hues that have plagued the organization for decades.

Fenway Park was surrounded in bitter controversy after Orioles outfielder Adam Jones said he was racially abused by fans Monday night, being called a racial epithet and having a bag of peanuts thrown at him.

The Red Sox, players and state and city officials apologized throughout the morning, but a sort of cleansing moment came when Jones stepped up to the plate for his first at-bat Tuesday night.

After the game, however, Jones' teammate Manny Machado exploded in a expletive-laced tirade against the Red Sox, and it had nothing to do with race. Sox pitchers had apparently thrown hard at him for the second time in recent days.

Machado injured Dustin Pedroia several games ago with his slide into second base. He was thrown at by Matt Barnes in Baltimore (Barnes was then suspended by Major League Baseball), and on Tuesday night, Chris Sale threw a high-90s fastball behind Machado. The two stared off on the field, but Machado exploded after the game, saying he's lost all respect for the Red Sox organization and players in language so salty we don't have enough hyphens to hide the words.

A much warmer scene was in the making at TD Garden.

Thomas had come off a combined 10 hours in the dental chair for work after losing a tooth in Sunday's Game 1 victory. He had also just delivered his sister Chyna's eulogy over the weekend after she died in a car crash just more than two weeks ago.

Enveloped in all of that, Thomas scored a career-high 53 points in a physical playoff victory. When asked after the game where he summoned the strength for such a historic performance, he credited Chyna.

"It's my sister," he told TNT's David Aldridge. "It's her birthday today. She would have been 23 today. Everything I do is for her. And she's watching over me, so that's all her."

Here's his emotional interview after the game on TNT:

Photos by Keith Allison via Flickr