National Basketball Association

Celtics F benched for being late, but he sure didn't miss Super Bowl

Published Feb. 1, 2015 8:49 p.m. ET

foxsports

With the city still covered in snow and another storm on the way (and the Patriots playing in the Super Bowl and all), there were plenty of excuses for someone in Boston unfortunate enough to be scheduled to work Sunday to at least call in a little late.

Perhaps even if they play for the city's professional basketball team.

Celtics forward Jared Sullinger was replaced by Tyler Zeller in the starting lineup for Sunday's home game against the Miami Heat because, according to head coach Brad Stevens, Sullinger was "four or five minutes" late to the morning walk-through. Sullinger still got 19 minutes of playing time, but scored only seven points in 19 minutes on dreadful 3-of-11 shooting. The Celtics lost to the Heat 83-75.

The development was newsworthy for two reasons. First, Sullinger was the only player to start in every game for the Celtics before Sunday. Second, Stevens said the tardiness was nothing he viewed as signs of a bigger problem:

“The one thing I don’t want to do is make a bigger deal out of this than it is. ... And it’s just, we had already gone through a couple of things so we decided to do that. And again, not a trend, not a problem, not a short- or long-term problem. I just felt like Zeller had gone through what we needed to go through, and then we’ll catch Sully up before the game.”

Now, did the Super Bowl really play a role in Sullinger's slip-up? Who knows? But we do know this -- he certainly made it to a TV in time to tweet about Super Bowl commercials:

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