Stay On That Side: Why I No Longer Care If You’re A Boston Celtics Fan Anymore
Back in 2022, I wrote a piece for ESPN/Andscape about why Black people can root for the Boston Celtics without any trepidation. Now? I no longer care enough about widespread acceptance to even present a case.
It was June 2022 and my beloved Boston Celtics had finished their Revenge Tour en route to facing the juggernaut Golden State Warriors in the NBA Finals. I was seeing a disturbing amount of ahistoric propaganda about the Boston Celtics organization spreading through real time social media, often in the guise of jokes but based on the comments people were actually thinking they were factual statements. On the other side, you had people that were rooting for the Boston Celtics, not because of the team itself or what they accomplished on the court, but solely because the head coach Ime Udoka was the boyfriend of popular actress Nia Long.
In any event, I felt the need to correct the record, and assure Black folks nationwide that they could root for the Boston Celtics without any fear or guilt. I contacted an editor I knew at ESPN’s Andscape, pitched my idea, wrote “Why Black Folks Can Root For The Boston Celtics” and it ran while the Boston Celtics went up 2–1 on Golden State. At one point, the article hit the front page of ESPN and it was shared everywhere.
I felt proud of myself, however, the Golden State Warriors won three games in a row, and an avalanche of pushback turned into a tsunami of resistance online. Twitter and Instagram had become so hostile to Bostonians and Celtics fans that I pretty much stayed offline for two full weeks after Game 6 was played. I severely underestimated how much people hate Boston–as a result, they hate all Boston sports teams–especially the Boston Celtics.
I found a Google Trends map that outlined how little support the Celtics had nationwide during and after the 2022 NBA Finals that raised my eyebrows. But appealing to people’s common sense or better natures I was fighting an uphill battle with little to no chance of success. People spent far more time making fun of Boston and clowning the Celtics for losing than they ever did praising the Golden State Warriors for winning.
Following that trip to the 2022 NBA Finals, the shit really hit the fan(s). Head coach Ime Udoka was being investigated by the Boston Celtics after there was suspicion of him having an improper sexual relationship with another Boston Celtics franchise staff member. An independent law firm found that Ime Udoka violated multiple team policies, as a result the Boston Celtics suspended Ime Udoka for the entirety of the upcoming 2022–23 NBA season on September 23rd, 2022.
They announced that 34 year old assistant coach Joe Mazzulla would replace Ime Udoka as head coach on an interim basis. Joe hadn’t been a head coach since his days at Division II program Fairmont State in Fairmont, WV where he went 43–17 while also serving as an assistant coach for the Maine Red Claws (now the Maine Celtics). He left that job in 2019 to become an assistant coach with the Boston Celtics, first under Brad Stevens then under Ime Udoka who replaced Brad Stevens as head coach when he got promoted to General Manager when Danny Ainge retired from his role as President Of Basketball Operations.
Not only did Ime Udoka’s suspension become a clusterfuck, but people using real time social media began to speculate on what occurred, in the process violating the privacies of every woman who worked for the Boston Celtics organization. You had so-called journalists jumping to conclusions, spreading misinformation and encroaching on people’s individual freedoms. Even with this absolute shit show happening just at the beginning of training camp and a week and a half before the Celtics opened the preseason versus the Charlotte Hornets at home, Coach Mazzulla was able to get his squad focused for the upcoming season.
The media circus surrounding the Ime Udoka situation followed the team around for the first few months of the regular season but it did little to affect the Boston Celtics. Joe Mazzulla won his first Eastern Conference Coach Of The Month Award on December 1st, 2022 for the Celtics starting the 2022–23 NBA season 18–4 during the months of October and November 2022. The Boston Celtics were being led by a 34 year old interim head coach, had a scandal looming overhead, but still managed to start the season on pace to win 66 games. Mind you, the Celtics were initially 4–3 before winning 14 of their next 15 games. Coach Mazzulla ended up coaching Team Giannis by All Star Weekend and on February 16th, 2023 the Boston Celtics removed the interim tag, officially making Joe Mazzulla the 19th head coach in Boston Celtics history. At the time, the Celtics were an Eastern Conference leading 42–17. The year before, Ime Udoka finished the regular season with a 51–31 record.
I knew something was amiss when the 2023 All Star Game in Utah was heavily criticized for being “boring” and “not competitive” in the same season where Jayson Tatum won the All Star Game MVP Award while scoring a record 55 points with a team leading 10 rebounds for the victorious Team Giannis which won 184–175 over Team LeBron. Incidentally, Team LeBron’s scoring and rebounding leader was Jayson’s Boston Celtics teammate Jaylen Brown who scored 35 points and grabbed 14 rebounds. There was a segment at the end of the 3rd quarter where Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown faced off against each other for multiple possessions, in previous years two popular young high scoring, high flying superstars on the same team going back and forth would be considered exciting to the NBA fandom. In this case? I saw countless people complaining about it on Twitter in real time all across the timeline. This would be the last year of the All Star Game Draft, the next season we’d see a return to the old East vs. West format.
However, not everyone was on board with Joe Mazzulla’s promotion being made official. Damon Stoudamire left the Boston Celtics coaching staff the following month to assume a head coaching position at Georgia Tech and the Celtics opted to not replace him. The playoffs were a month away and the Boston Celtics coaching staff and support staff had experienced significant turnover from the previous season when they were two wins short of an NBA title. Ime Udoka, Will Hardy, and Damon Stoudamire were no longer there and being short an assistant can come back to bite the team in the ass during the postseason. Turns out, it did.
The Boston Celtics finished the 2022–23 regular season with a 57–25 record, good for the 2nd seed in the Eastern Conference, one game behind the Milwaukee Bucks. Even with a loaded roster that played for each other, the last season’s Defensive Player Of The Year, and two All-Stars the Boston Celtics dealt with things like having casual fans rooting against them because they wanted revenge for a wronged Nia Long. The Boston Celtics had no chance at winning anyone over, especially with LeBron James, Anthony Davis, and the Los Angeles Lakers also advancing to the Western Conference Finals versus the Denver Nuggets.
The first year head coach with a short handed coaching staff’s team didn’t seem to have the necessary intensity, urgency or attention to detail to play to the level they needed to in the playoffs. Coach Mazzulla also made some errors and was slow to call timeouts or make adjustments in key moments. They needed 6 games to beat the Atlanta Hawks in the First Round, were down 3–2 to the Philadelphia 76ers before winning a Game 7 to advance to the Eastern Conference Finals, then went down 0–3 to the 8th seeded Miami Heat. It was clear that not only was the coach not yet ready to get his team over the hump, his coaching staff was incomplete and the Celtics simply didn’t have the proper personnel to get the job done.
Although the Boston Celtics rallied, winning three straight games to force another Game 7 in TD Garden, injuries to Malcolm Brogdon and Jayson Tatum slowed the Celtics but they played an all around terrible game from start to end, losing 103 to 84. They shot 39% from the field and 21% from the three point line. Jaylen Brown had 8 turnovers and shot 8 for 23, punctuated by only hitting one of his nine three point attempts. Jayson Tatum only scored 14 points in 41 minutes, leaving a bad taste in Celtics fans mouths. The Boston Celtics were critiqued, torn apart, and made the butt of jokes for months afterwards. It was clear that decisions needed to be made about re-signing Jaylen Brown, Grant Williams, and other personnel changes were clearly forthcoming. While the Los Angeles Lakers were flat out swept by the Denver Nuggets, they received nowhere near the same level of derision as the Boston Celtics did in defeat. Go figure.
On June 23rd, 2023, less than four weeks after losing Game 7 on the TD Garden court, the Boston Celtics traded Marcus Smart to the Memphis Grizzlies, then shipped Danillo Gallinari, Mike Muscala, and Julian Phillips to the Washington Wizards for Kristaps Porzingis.
On July 12th, 2023, in a sign and trade with the Dallas Mavericks, Boston sent Grant Williams to Dallas for a 2025 2nd round draft pick and a 2030 2nd round draft pick and also received a 2024 2nd round draft pick from the San Antonio Spurs.
After the Milwaukee Bucks traded Jrue Holiday and 3 1st round draft picks to the Portland Trail Blazers for Damian Lillard on September 27th, 2023, the Boston Celtics traded Malcolm Brogdon, Robert Williams III, a 2024 1st round pick and a 2029 1st round pick to Portland for Jrue Holiday on October 1st, 2023. The Boston Celtics went from having a point guard by commitee triumvirate of Marcus Smart, Malcolm Brogdon, and Derrick White to having one of the best offensive and defensive backcourts in the NBA with Jrue Holiday and Derrick White. They’re both clutch, All-Defensive Team members who are 6'4", athletic, versatile, and Jrue Holiday had championship experience having won a ring with the Milwaukee Bucks in 2021 versus the Phoenix Suns. The Boston Celtics were reloaded but not everyone saw it that way.
Kendrick Perkins thought the loss of Marcus Smart and Grant Williams removed the heart and the competitiveness of the Boston Celtics while Stephen A. Smith wasn’t convinced that Kristaps Porzingis could perform when the lights are brightest in the postseason. Most NBA experts and analysts were fully expecting the pairing of Giannis Antekounmpo and Dame Lillard to be the odds on favorites to emerge from the East. Even with a declining Khris Middleton, a then 35 year old Brook Lopez, and a rookie head coach in Adrian Griffin.
The reservations they all had with Joe Mazzulla taking over as head coach for the Boston Celtics the previous season they didn’t seem to have with Adrian Griffin. No one seemed to mention how much the defense would suffer after shipping away Jrue Holiday and Grayson Allen. Bobby Portis would need to seriously step his game up and no one mentioned how much of a factor Damian Lillard coming to Milwaukee as opposed to Miami like he initially requested would play out during the season or the fact he was a significant step down defensively from Jrue Holiday. These were all things we discussed in Boston, but it seemed like on ESPN, ABC, TNT, NBATV, and FOX very few of their on air personalties or reporters ever brought these things up. I thought they were all fairly obvious, myself.
The Boston Celtics shot out to a 20–5 record, then beat the Los Angeles Lakers 126–115 on Christmas in front of a national audience to improve to 23–6 in a game where 6 players scored in double digits led by Kristaps Porzingis’ 28 points and 11 rebounds. Jayson Tatum finished with 25 points, 8 rebounds, and 7 assists, Jaylen Brown had 19 points and 5 rebounds but the Boston Celtics’ backcourt really impressed. Jrue Holiday’s 18 points, 7 rebounds and 7 assists and Derrick White’s 18 points, 11 assists, 2 steals and 2 blocks are what ultimately did the Lakers in who dropped to 16–15 on the season.
Even after this impressive showing of team basketball, shooting and defensive prowess, NBA fans seemed to be upset that the Lakers lost as if they were the better or favored squad entering the contest. Turns out that even with a revamped roster, full coaching staff, and a coach getting better at his job the attitude towards the Boston Celtics hadn’t changed. It seemed as though the media who covered the league harbored the same level of resentment, irritation, and cynicism towards the organization as the people online. No matter how good they were, people seemed to wait for them to fail like they’d done in previous years even though they clearly weren’t the same team as the ones in the recent past.
The Boston Celtics were winning games and setting records but if you watched ESPN morning and afternoon programming like “Get Up”, “First Take”, or “NBA Today” you’d never know it. The Boston Celtics were often mentioned in passing and the focus was instead put on what team could challenge or beat them or trying to figure out why the Los Angeles Lakers, Golden State Warriors, Los Angeles Clippers, Phoenix Suns, Miami Heat, and Milwaukee Bucks were all underacheiving.
It appeared every program was full of television personalities, NBA experts and analysts all trying to convince people that the Boston Celtics weren’t the team they were proving to everyone they were. Win streaks were rarely mentioned but every loss resulted in a laundry list of talking points with Stephen A. Smith, Kendrick Perkins, and company telling everyone why the Boston Celtics were fugazi. They play down to their competiton. They struggle in clutch situations. Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown shrunk in the 2022 NBA Finals and Game 7 in the TD Garden last Eastern Conference Finals. It doesn’t matter that they’re only 27 and 26 years old, we’re writing them off and refuse to believe in them even if they’re making us all look stupid in the process.
On February 1st, 2024, several NBA analysts, color commentators, and pundits all claimed they lacked championship focus after losing 114–105 to a Los Angeles Lakers team without LeBron James and Anthony Davis. Jaylen Brown, Derrick White, and Jrue Holiday all combined for 25 points on 12 for 32 from the field. They decided to pick a regular season loss in February to gauge whether or not the Boston Celtics were a championship contender although they weren’t doing the same to the Miami Heat, Philadelphia 76ers, Milwaukee Bucks, Golden State Warriors, Los Angeles Clippers, or Los Angeles Lakers on air.
In response, between February 1st, 2024 and April 11th, 2024 the Boston Celtics posted a 27–6 record. They finished 64–18, clinching the playoffs so early that they secured the 1st seed in the Eastern Conference with two weeks still left in the season. The Boston Celtics were resting their starters, bringing up the Maine Celtics who were on an epic playoff run to the G League Finals to get NBA experience and win them games with the playoffs looming. As a result, the Maine Celtics didn’t win the G League Championship because their stars were playing meaningful NBA minutes then traveling to play G League games.
In any event, after the smoke cleared from the Play In Tournament, the Boston Celtics opened the 2024 NBA Playoffs facing the very same team that eliminated them the season before, the Miami Heat. However, the Heat would be without their star player Jimmy Butler and new acquisition Terry Rozier. The Celtics beat the Heat 114–94 in Game 1 and people waved it off because of the Miami Heat’s injuries.
However, when the Boston Celtics lost Game 2 111–101 behind Miami shooting 23 for 43 from the three point line, suddenly this loss was an indictment against the Celtics and proof they weren’t going to win the NBA Championship. It was April 24th, 2024 and the playoffs had only been underway 8 days when these proclamations were being made. The Boston Celtics managed to win the next three games and advance to the 2nd Round where they’d face the Cleveland Cavaliers who were without the services of forward Jarrett Allen.
To further stoke the fires of discontent from the NBA fandom and media alike, the Golden State Warriors didn’t survive the Play-In Tournament, the Los Angeles Lakers were eliminated by the defending champion Denver Nuggets for the second season in a row, and an injury to Giannis Antekounmpo lead to the Milwaukee Bucks’ second straight elimination in the First Round to a much lower seed. Oddly enough, those same NBA experts, analysts, and reporters didn’t see those scenarios as real possibilities and never wrote any of those teams off given their recent track records like they did with the Boston Celtics. It’s almost as if they were harboring biases against them. Nah, that would be wildly unprofessional if true!
The Celtics/Cavs series opened with a 120–95 Celtics win at TD Garden followed by an 118–94 loss in Game 2. The game was tied 54–54 at halftime before Donovan Mitchell took over. The critics were out again in full force, talking about how the Boston Celtics weren’t championship material and they couldn’t be trusted. The Celtics responded by winning the next three games against a Cleveland Cavaliers squad without Donovan Mitchell who injured himself during their Game 3 loss.
Even though the Boston Celtics had advanced to their third consecutive Eastern Conference Finals and their sixth berth in the past eight seasons, they were being discredited because they didn’t play a squad that was at full strength to do it. The ironic part being the Celtics had been playing without their 3rd leading scorer and Human Cheat Code Kristaps Porzingis since Game 4 of their First Round series against the Miami Heat. Rather than get credit for winning 4 games on the road without him, it was completely written off.
To make matters worse, the NBA fandom and media alike were openly pulling for the banged up New York Knicks to make it to the Eastern Conference Finals and play the Boston Celtics. NBA analysts, commentators, and reporters were even going as far as saying the healthy New York Knicks could beat the Boston Celtics when they went up 3–2. I was taken aback, “What kind of drugs are these people taking?” I wondered to myself. The Knicks were struggling with the Indiana Pacers, they couldn’t possibly hang with the Boston Celtics!
When the New York Knicks lost Game 6 in Indianapolis 116–103, ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith joined a bunch of other New York celebrities in Madison Square Garden to lend support to the orange & blue for Game 7. The bias was blatant and intentional. In the end, it didn’t matter as on May 19th, 2024 the Indiana Pacers beat the New York Knicks 130–109 to advance to the Eastern Conference Finals. Everyone besides Celtics fans pouted, complained, and created instant alternate reality sports fan fiction about what the Knicks would’ve done to the Celtics. Meanwhile, in the real world the Boston Celtics were about to host yet another Eastern Conference Finals in hopes of returning to their first NBA Finals since 2022.
The Boston Celtics won Game 1 in TD Garden 133–128. Afterwards people complained the game was too close. When the Celtics won Game 2 126–110, it came after sports reporters like Michael Wilbon claimed he couldn’t trust the Boston Celtics and others expected them to lose Game 2 like they did the two previous series’. When the Boston Celtics pulled out a 114–111 win in Gainbridge Fieldhouse to go up 3–0, rather than praise the Boston Celtics for winning a tight game and dispelling the narrative that they struggled in clutch minutes, they claimed the Celtics played down to their opponents and the game shouldn’t have ever been that close to begin with.
The Boston Celtics swept the Indiana Pacers in Game 4 with yet another clutch victory, 105–102. Jaylen Brown won the Larry Bird Eastern Conference Finals MVP Award and the Celtics improved to 6–0 on the road in the postseason, but even with the Boston Celtics doing away with several of the prevailing critiques and narratives to advance to their 2nd NBA Finals in three seasons, most NBA media felt that the same Boston Celtics who played close games against the Indiana Pacers without Tyrese Haliburton had no shot in Hell at beating either the team that eliminated the defending NBA Champion Denver Nuggets or the Dallas Mavericks led by Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving. Mind you, the Boston Celtics split the season series 1–1 versus the Timberwolves in the regular season and were 2–0 versus the Dallas Mavericks. Kyrie Irving hadn’t won a game against the Boston Celtics since the 2021 NBA Playoffs. I don’t know how these people who cover the NBA for a living weren’t aware of these things.
Yet another monkeywrench was tossed into the ol’ Narrative Machine as the Dallas Mavericks eliminated the Minnesota Timberwolves in five games. Back on May 7th, 2024, Stephen A. Smith and his cohorts on ESPN’s shows were declaring the Minnesota Timberwolves the NBA Finals favorites after going up 2–0 on the Denver Nuggets, and had anointed Anthony Edwards the Future Face Of The League. On May 30th, 2024 the Minnesota Timberwolves were eliminated from the postseason and they all looked stupid as hell for jumping to conclusions publicly.
The wait for Game 1 of the NBA Finals took forever, the Boston Celtics had a 10 day wait. It gave plenty of time to get Kristaps Porzingis ready to finally rejoin his squad after missing 10 games over 38 days. This didn’t sway many NBA journalists, who wondered how the Boston Celtics were going to possibly stop Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving when they saw Andrew Nembhard and T.J.McConnell score on them.
When Rachel Nichols said this out loud during a telecast, I waited for her to add that when it counted the most in clutch time, the Boston Celtics made repeated defensive stops in several instances, often holding the opponent scoreless during the waning minutes of close games. She didn’t include that factoid, nor that the Boston Celtics hadn’t lost a playoff game in weeks. It didn’t matter, because the Boston Celtics hadn’t played any real competition yet, whereas the Mavericks had. None of them could even fathom the possibility that maybe the Boston Celtics are better than any of the teams the Mavericks faced in the Western Conference playoffs.
The narrative I kept seeing everywhere was “How will the Boston Celtics stop Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving?”. I wondered if these people had ever watched the Boston Celtics play during the 2023–24 season because this roster has Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Kristaps Porzingis, Derrick White, Jrue Holiday, and Al Horford on it who all shoot, pass, and defend at an elite level. The question SHOULD’VE been “How will the Dallas Mavericks stop all of these Boston Celtics?” Even with all of the evidence that pointed to the contary, a very clear anti-Boston sentiment had spread throughout sport media. The majority of them picked the Mavericks over the Celtics.
In conclusion, it doesn’t matter what the Boston Celtics do. They will never be beloved. Even when they show you overwhelming evidence to the contrary, people instead opt to believe the running narratives about the Boston Celtics. Even when they play selfless team ball and share the rock, Stephen A. Smith will characterize them as taking turns on offense as if they’re the And 1 Tour squad instead of them playing off of each other and hunting mismatches. No matter how many close games they win, folks will still expect them to drop the game in clutch minutes. It doesn’t matter how many clutch stops and clutch buckets they make. No matter how much they stay together as a team and play the game the way it’s supposed to be played, people still hate them. Just because they play in Boston.
Both hatred and love can make people say and do stupid things. Hate clouds judgement and prevents you from recognizing the truth. Since the Boston Celtics can’t ever be the beloved squad everyone pulls for, it’s time they embrace the role of the villain. Relish ruining all of these supposed basketball fans and NBA analysts Finals experiences. Nick Wright made the trip to Boston, he walked around my neighborhood openly stating he came to Boston with the intention of watching Luka Doncic win his first Finals game. He went home without getting to see that happen, instead the Dallas Mavericks went down 2–0. Clown.
I saw Kendrick Perkins arrive in Fenway Park, pretending he was pulling for the Boston Celtics the whole time but we’ve been watching him on ESPN all season long. We’ve watched him sing the praises of the Milwaukee Bucks, Miami Heat, and New York Knicks. He once said that “No one is scared of the Boston Celtics”. Years ago, he even flat out said the Boston Celtics should split up the Jays. One thing about Bostonians is we never forget disrespect and don’t accept bandwagoners.
In the immortal words of Jaylen Brown, “If you’re on that side? Stay on that side”.
