I was junior in college at BC and I had gone to a few games during the '01-02 season. It was a fun bunch to watch but the expectations for that team were limited. Anyways, one of my good buddies mentioned that he was thinking of going in for a playoff strip and was looking for someone else to go in with him. (Back then, you were able to purchase a strip of tickets for each playoff game and you were charged only for the games played. Every round, too). I said what the heck. I had been too young to experience the Celtics in the playoffs during the '80s and this would finally be my chance to see a Celtics playoff game. Figured, I'd get to see the first round, maybe the second if they got lucky. Ended up getting two aisle seats in row 5 or 6 in section 324.
Anyways, we all know that the Celtics beat the 76ers and then the Pistons and make this unexpected run to the Eastern Conference Finals. My college buddy and I had been going to the games and had a blast. Unfortunately for him, he ended up having to get surgery on his knee right before the ECF were to start and was on crutches. He told me that he couldn't go to Game 3 and gave me the other ticket. So I ended up asking my father. I figured I would finally have the chance to take my dad to a bigtime sporting event after he had brought me to so many Sox regular season and playoff games.
The day of the game arrives and I'm living in Brighton for the summer so my father comes in and picks me up and we go out and grab some lunch at the Legal Seafood down on the Waterfront. It was a beautiful Sunday and we walked from the Waterfront to the Garden (FleetCenter at the time).
The game was absolutely atrocious to start. The place was filled to capacity and there was just this aura of disappointment permeating the arena. Down 20 at the half, things did not look good and I remember so horrible that I finally had the ability to bring my father to a game like this and the Celtics were laying an egg. Third quarter started and things didn't look much better,
What amazed me at the end of the third quarter was that there was extreme disappointment in the Garden but no one, but I mean, NO ONE was leaving the FleetCenter. Everyone was sticking around, it was the oddest thing. The Celtics were down 21. I remember telling my father when the 4th quarter was about to start that if we could get this deficit down to 10 with around 6 minutes remaining, we'd have a shot. It was optimism on a 21 year old's part but what the heck, I said it.
The Celtics started chipping away slowly and the buzz keep building and building and building.... All of a sudden the Nets were making mistakes and were the ones that looked like they were feeling the pressure. The C's started gaining more and more confidence; Pierce, Walker, Anderson, McCarty, Delk, and Rogers. These guys just starting making shots and making stops on the defensive end. The Celtics did get it down to single digits a little under halfway to go in the quarter. The place was going nuts. Up until that point, I had never heard a sports venue generating noise of that magnitude and I had seen some pretty bigtime Sox games and BC football games in person. Anyways, the Celtics were able to pull even and then pull ahead. It was so surreal. I think everyone in the FleetCenter were on their feet the last 5 minutes or so of the game. Truely remarkable. The Celtics did the impossible and came back and won the game. I just remember turning to my dad and being on Cloud Nine and so was he.
Almost 5 years to the day later (day before the '07 draft lottery), I walked into the Garden and bought myself two season tickets in Sec. 311. Ended up having my dad with me again when the Celtics beat the Lakers in Game 6 to win the title. What I think was really special about that 2002 team and the run they made was that it really exposed a whole next generation to the potential of "Celtic Pride" and the way this city gets behind the team when it was performing well. It had been the first playoffs since the '94-95 team bowed out to the Magic in the 1st round. A lot had changed, the Garden got torn down, Pitino rolled in and was an utter failure, the lockout, etc. A whole generation was growing up with the Celtics being part of "Loserville". This run was the first glimpse of success for those of us too young to remember '81, '84, and '86 or weren't even born yet.
Lastly, I just want to mention that I maintain to this day that Game 3 of the 2002 ECF was the loudest I've ever heard the FleetCenter/Garden. This includes last year's entire playoffs.
Topic: 2002 Eastern Conference Finals Game 3 (Read 4364 times)