Sunday night's game between the Boston Celtics and New Orleans Pelicans at TD Garden didn't have any special significance outside of being a mid-January matchup between two fun-to-watch NBA teams.
But if you judged purely by the crowd enthusiasm and overall atmosphere of the arena, you might have thought the game was actually pretty important to both teams.
The score was pretty close the whole fourth quarter, and despite making a couple mistakes in the final few minutes, the Celtics escaped with a 120-119 win after Pelicans guard C.J. McCollum's shot at the buzzer banked off the glass, hit the rim and bounced out.
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The crowd was so fired up at different points of the game that McCollum had to ask Celtics forward Jayson Tatum a simple question.
"I was at the free throw line and C.J. McCollum asked me, 'Yo, is it always this turnt up in here?' I was like, 'Yeah.' That's the luxury we have of playing in front of the best fans," Tatum said in his postgame press conference, as seen in the video player above.
"Regardless of whether we're playing on TNT or we're playing a team that's 8-30, they bring the passion, they bring the energy. We can always feed off the crowd and feed off the fans from a Finals game to a preseason game. That's never in question -- the energy we can get from the crowd."
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McCollum isn't the first Pelicans player to be impressed with the Garden atmosphere over the last year.
Pelicans star Zion Williamson spoke positively about the building after losing to the Celtics in January of 2024.
“It’s dope. We was talking about it before the game. This is a dope ass arena," Williamson told reporters, per AP Radio Network's Gethin Coolbaugh. "Playing here and their fan base shows them a lot of love. When you're in an environment like this, your basketball blood can’t help but come out.”
No fan base is more passionate or knowledgeable than Celtics fans. Whether it's a preseason game, a regular season matchup in January or a Game 7 in May, the Garden is always full of energy, and that's a huge advantage for the C's.