Boston Celtics fans, or really Boston fans in general, take pride in being passionate, loud, and giving their teams the best support. On Monday, The Athletic released the results of its yearly anonymous NBA player poll.
Amongst the prompts that the writers asked hoopers about were both “Which arena has the most passionate fans?” and “Which arena has the most obnoxious fans?”
TD Garden was the top vote-getter in both categories, slightly edging Madison Square Garden out for most passionate fans, 20.5% to 19.3% of the vote. North Station was voted home to the most obnoxious fans by a landslide.
Now, as someone who supports the Celtics it’s great to see the fanbase get recognized in this regard. It’s something people pride themselves in, after all.
There is a layer to this that boils my blood, though.
If the Celtics are playing in front of the most passionate and most obnoxious fans, then why can’t they win home playoff games???
According to @TheAthletic’s NBA player poll#Celtics fans at TD Garden are the most passionate (and obnoxious) in the NBA
— Sam LaFrance (@SamLaFranceNBA) May 18, 2026
VERY cool that these fans help the team win playoff games in the spring pic.twitter.com/3K82rLjghY
If the fans are so great, then why is their no home-court advantage for the Celtics?
Two weeks removed from Boston’s devastating Game 7 loss, which cemented their 3-1 collapse to the Philadelphia 76ers, it’s still difficult to get past how unreliable the Celtics have been in home playoff games over the past several seasons.
They’ve won just 25 of a possible 44 games at TD Garden since 2022. Nine of those wins came during their 2024 NBA Championship run, where they went 9-2 at home. Outside of that season, they’ve lost more than they’ve won with a 16-17 record on the parquet.
The Celtics lost Games 2, 5, and 7 in their first-round series loss to Philly this spring.
Their unreliable play at home is frankly unacceptable at this point. It’s even worse considering that the NBA, and every other professional sports league in the country, rewards the teams with the best record by giving them a home advantage in the playoffs.
Like, should the Celtics actually try and place in the five through eight range so they play more games on the road?
The devastating piece of this is that losing at home is a real issue with no real solution. Writing an article to complain about it is very surface-level. There is nothing strategically or schematically different about a game played in Boston or a game played somewhere else.
The court is the same length. The baskets are the same height. The three-point lines are the same distance. Basketball is still basketball.
Yet, there used to be a mystique about playing under the banners. It used to be a huge story if any team managed to beat the Celtics in Boston. Even in the new building over the past 31 years, it’d been rare for the Cs to drop games at home.
There’s no concrete path to restoring TD Garden to a fortress-type of home court, but it’s starting to feel like a dire issue that’s going to need to be resolved if the Celtics are going to compete for championships.
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