The Boston Celtics brought home a 2024 NBA Championship title in June, and as they raised historic Banner 18 in Tuesday night’s opening game, the team tipped off the season with the TNT American Express Road Show.
Waves of green –– Tatum jerseys, shamrock logos –– filed into lines wrapping around the venue at Boston City Hall Plaza. When doors opened at 4:30 p.m., the fans came flooding in.
Agnes Nobile, the “Celtics Queen,” was one of them. She has been a superfan for 17 years. Twelve years before that, she got roped into the sport with season tickets purchased by an old flame. While the two split soon after, one ticket still displayed her name.
“I’m keeping it,” she said at the time.
Since then, Nobile has been to hundreds of games. She has met players like Paul Pierce, who recorded 26,397 points in his 19-season career to rank as the 17th all-time point leader in NBA history. On top of that, the Celtics Queen got him to sign one of her jerseys.
Nobile entered the venue in her green leather jacket and beaded bracelets, her numerous Celtics pins and the Pierce jersey, which she brandished in the air like it was Banner 19.
For many fans, that is all they want from the team this season.
“I expect another championship,” said Marc Salvatelli, Celtics fan and Anytime Fitness Manager. “I hope to see another Banner 19 on the rafters.”
The event, centered around TNT Sports’ Emmy Award-winning show “Inside the NBA,” amassed hundreds of emphatic fans pining to catch a glimpse of Shaquille O’Neal, Charles Barkley, Ernie Johnson and Kenny Smith.
With the legends stationed at the heart of the plaza, one fan screamed “Chuck” while another held up a sign that read, “1 rule: Keep your towels on” in reference to Barkley’s podcast with Johnson –– The Steam Room.
“In terms of sports coverage, ‘Inside the NBA’ is the gold standard,” said Mason Jablonsky, a journalism major at Boston University and an NBA fan. “They provide such rich commentary that isn’t solely based on attention-grabbing headlines and hot takes.”
But after the 2024-25 season, the NBA will leave TNT to launch a new $77 billion, 11-year deal with the Walt Disney Company, NBCUniversal and Amazon Prime Video.
That means the “Inside the NBA” hosts and crew team will likely disband, and the show will be discontinued.
“‘Inside the NBA’ was really a one-in-a-million show where we’ll never see anything quite like it ever again,” Jablonsky said.
However, Jablonsky said he expects its impact to endure for years and decades to come.
While “Inside the NBA” is launching its last season, the Celtics –– and their fans –– are just getting started.
At around 8:30 p.m., Adel DiPersio, a second-year graduate student at BU, was sitting among a circle of friends in the Dugout Cafe on Commonwealth Avenue and watching the season opener on a walled TV.
She said she is just glad to see the end of a 16-year-long championship drought.
“I think there’s a Boston masochism that even though they lost for so long, I just kept believing in them,” she said with a beer in hand. “Now they’re good
again, and I’m just like, ‘That’s my team.’”
For other basketball fans, it’s about rivalries and team dynamics –– Celtics vs. Lakers, Bird vs. Magic.
Sirak Kurban, strategic communications and digital manager for the City of Boston, said he has loved the Los Angeles Lakers since he was 4 years old.
“The Celtics are way better now, so the rivalry is not as strong,” said Kurban, who wore a Lakers jersey to the tip-off event. “But being a Lakers fan in Boston makes the rivalry more exciting for me.”
Fittingly, tip-off matchups pitted Los Angeles against the Minnesota Timberwolves and Boston against the New York Knicks. The Lakers finished 110-103, and the Celtics won 132-109. Not only did Boston win, but it tied the NBA record for most 3-pointers in a game with 29 shots made.
After beating the Washington Wizards 122-102 tonight, the Celtics play the Detroit Pistons this Saturday. The fans are sure to show up in shamrock green.
“I grew up a Celtics fan. Boston pride runs deep. Been loving this team ever since I picked up a basketball,” Salvatelli said. “It’s a pride of this town. It’s pride of this city. I love it.”
