Booing during the playoffs is NOT ok

[CelticG1]

I honestly wouldn't even care that much about the booing if the cheering and chanting was loud when we are winning. It's not though. During the Miami series when we were killing it the crowd was still absolutely pathetic.

It's really sad that our boos are louder than our cheers.

It was sweet for like 30 seconds tonight when 100 people got a "lets go celtics chant" going. I think that was the first of the playoffs...

[rav123]

Neither is losing by 30.

No, it's not, but why can't the fans show some respect for what the Celtics franchise has done.

I think the respect is in the millions of dollars that comes out of the fans' pockets and goes into the players pockets. All of these guys are paid huge money to play a game. As someone wrote earlier, this isn't little league.

The job is full-time. What we saw is a lack of effort for 48 minutes during a 40-hour week. These guys practice a lot, spend a lot of time in the gym and have to watch what they eat and what they do (e.g. they can't ride motorcycles etc.).

Okay, they're maybe not sacrifices worth what they are getting paid, but we must understand that the playing each game is not the only part of their job description (Literally, actually - for Glen Davis to earn some of his contract he has to lose weight).

[liam]

I honestly wouldn't even care that much about the booing if the cheering and chanting was loud when we are winning. It's not though. During the Miami series when we were killing it the crowd was still absolutely pathetic.

It's really sad that our boos are louder than our cheers.

It was sweet for like 30 seconds tonight when 100 people got a "lets go celtics chant" going. I think that was the first of the playoffs...

The piped in music is louder than the fans. It was like a Spurs game!

[Q_FBE]

Well, the game has gotten too expensive for the passionate Celtics fans who can only afford to surf the I-net and chat during the Celtics games.

The kids who attend just don't seem to have the history that us Old-schoolers have.

That said, the Celtics are too inconsistent to win the championship.

[Andy Jick]

Did the Cleveland fans boo their team when they were down 20 playing horribly in Game 2?

too bad they didn't...  according to your logic, if they had we would have won tonight because the cavs would have been demoralized.

[ballin]

[Edited for Content}

Over the line.  Do not use profanity or label other fans.

[guava_wrench]

Well, the game has gotten too expensive for the passionate Celtics fans who can only afford to surf the I-net and chat during the Celtics games.

The kids who attend just don't seem to have the history that us Old-schoolers have.

That said, the Celtics are too inconsistent to win the championship.

It is that passionate fan that is likely to feel entitled and start booing. It isn't the casual fan who boos. It is the dudes upstairs who like to start Scal chants and nonsense like that.

FYI, plenty of passionate fans have good jobs and buy tickets to games.

The northeast from Philly up is full of annoying fans whose sense of entitlement and grouchiness makes them love booing. I have no idea what sense it makes to boo a team in a situation like that.

[guava_wrench]

Booing accomplishes nothing.
It's a downer for the players and ruins the enjoyment of others. If you don't think the players respond negatively to boos, you're wrong. They are not slaves. This isn't Nero's Roman Circus. Players want support when they are down on missed shots or referee frustrations. You'll always get more from your team with sugar than with salt in the wound.
 

These are professional players making ZILLIONS of dollars. If a little booing hurts their itty bitty feelings, I honestly don't feel too badly about it.

I say do whatever will help win. I don't see how fans having anger management issues helps anything.

I don't see the relevance of how much money they make. I want to maximize the chances of this team winning the series. Booing does nothing to help that. It is just burning bridges.

[kw10]

Booing accomplishes nothing.
It's a downer for the players and ruins the enjoyment of others. If you don't think the players respond negatively to boos, you're wrong. They are not slaves. This isn't Nero's Roman Circus. Players want support when they are down on missed shots or referee frustrations. You'll always get more from your team with sugar than with salt in the wound.
 

These are professional players making ZILLIONS of dollars. If a little booing hurts their itty bitty feelings, I honestly don't feel too badly about it.

I say do whatever will help win. I don't see how fans having anger management issues helps anything.

I don't see the relevance of how much money they make. I want to maximize the chances of this team winning the series. Booing does nothing to help that. It is just burning bridges.

Exactly, totally agree with you. Them making a lot of money doesn't toughen up their emotions.
If anything, their thousands of hours of hardwork getting them to playing pro ball and then getting boo-ed, will be even more upsetting.
Sometimes people just just wake up on the wrong side of bed and feel energyless. i'm not saying the C's can be excused from their play, but simply saying booing does more harm then good.

[Hila]

Celtics fans booed last night. Cavs fans booed on Monday. Per Dan Shaughnessy:

The good people of Cleveland could not believe what they were seeing. They watched the Cavaliers fall behind by 10, 15, 20, 25. They watched LeBron James in handcuffs (15 shots) and Mo Williams in leg irons (1-for-9 shooting).

Local fans booed their own team. Demoralized, some of them started filing out of Quicken Loans Arena with the Celtics leading, 91-66, with 8:32 left in the fourth quarter. A frustrated fan hurled a plastic beer bottle on the court after Paul Pierce horse-collared Williams.

I actually agree that booing during the playoffs is not OK, although I think the worse disgrace was all those empty seats when the game started. But bad fan behavior is hardly limited to Boston, nor is it new, nor is it limited to young/old/rich/blue collar/casual/die-hard/ whatever fans. I'm sure fans who remember the 60s also remember that the Celtics often didn't sell out the old Garden then.

The fans were bad last night. So were the Celtics. So were the referees. All should try to do better next game.

[Frezz]

I can't for the life of me figure out why some people are saying that we should be applauding that gutless effort last night. Because of the franchise's history? Well I'll tell you what, if the Celtics invite me to some event at the Garden this summer honoring the history of the franchise, I'll stand and cheer. But on this night, after that embarassing display, I'm booing. It's their job to be motivated. Not mine to motivate them.

[Casperian]

I find the fussing about booing sophomoric, frankly. This is professional basketball, not college, with professional prices and the implication by title that these are the best practitioners of their craft.

Tonight, the Celtics screwed the ticketholders, frankly, with a ridiculously half-baked effort on both ends of the floor. I'm not a booing advocate, per se, but I find no fault whatsoever with the folks paying the big prices expressing the same disgust that's being expressed here - by those of you who still aren't trying to pin every single thing this team does wrong on the fans or the officials - everyone but the 12 guys and four coaches who deserve the blame.

The hand-wringing about booing is just oddly misplaced hero workship, IMHO, and is the LAST thing that anyone in the Celtics organization can or should be concerned about. The concern is precisely what I've been outlining for a couple of days - how do the Celtics respond when Cleveland shakes off the lack of aggression and takes the basketball game to us on both ends of the floor.

The answer came tonight: We folded our tents and went quietly into the night. Simply unacceptable.

While I agree that itīs not the fault of those who booed that we lost last night, can the fans in attendance really say theyīve tried anything to help win this game?
 
I donīt have a problem with booing during the regular season. I donīt have a problem with booing your team after a playoff game.
The thing is, the boos started early in the game, when we were down 20 and there was still enough time to turn things around.
At that point, boos donīt help anyone. If your own fans donīt believe in you, itīs much harder to convince yourself that you can turn things around. I think thatīs only human, no matter if youīre a high school kid or a professional basketball player. I have seen bigger comebacks in the nba to know that this was too early to give up on your team.

[thedawg]

I agree to the boo simply because people showed up and paid for the tickets with their hard earned money to see Cavaliers celebrate in the end. It would have been a different story if they booed if they lost by 1-5 points, but we are talking about worst ever playoffs loss in the history. If that aint an excuse (apart from the hard-earned-money part) then i dont know what!
Danny, pls break up the "Big Three" this summer. We need to build around Rondo now.  He is our star.

[Kwhit10]

Yes there was a lot of booing last night.  Some of it was directed towards the Cavs, some of it was directed towards the Refs calls and some of it was towards the Celtics lackadaisical defensive effort.

[wiley]

Can someone start a poll answering the question:  

As a fan of the Celtics which was more embarassing, the Celtics performance against the Cavaliers, or the large number of empty Garden seats at tipoff?

my answer:  empty seats.

Celtics should move to Phoenix or Oklahoma.....sounds like in those cities they've got enough fans who are actually into the game to support two teams.

I'm not blaming any individual fans.  The problem is partly ticket prices and partly the way the N.B.A. is marketed.  For whatever reason Ok. City and Phoenix are less influenced at this moment by big bad marketing phenomena (dancers, jumbotrons, laptop giveaways during timeouts, the whole dumb swirl of sales that's attached to the game like a leech).

Finally, the way the game is reffed is a problem too, because it interrupts the flow of the game.  If the action stops every x number of seconds how can I stay into the game, off my phone, and out of conversations about work, dancing girls and the rest....

I used to teach English to foreign students.  Sometimes they would go to Celtics games.  I was embarrassed at times by their reaction, which was that they couldn't believe the fans weren't actually paying attention to the game itself.  (I was much more proud of those angst-filled Sox fans during important Sox games...now that is devotion....and the Garden should be filled with people with that same expression of angst, love and devotion).

It's about focus:  It's easier at Fenway.  In the Garden, marketing and technology, and the current way the game is reffed, diminish our capacity.  

Game 4 Garden Goers:  leave phone at home, arrive early and think flow!  And when the Jumbotron or a particularly hot dancer, or the third ticky tack foul in a row tries to interrupt your experience, think quietly to yourself:  No.