Boston is a nice place to live, but the history can get to you sometimes...

Someone asked my father what he thought of the Celtics this year and he replied: "Red Aurbach wouldn't have made that trade." That is true, if Red had been the GM, he would have gotten Oden AND Durant, trading Paul Pierce for both the first and second picks of the draft. Of course, Red's last pick was Shammond Williams, and if you don't remember Williams, no one else in Boston can seem to either.
If Red were in his prime, he would coach the team to another dozen championships. Alas, as Pitino said, the big three aren't walking through that door, and if they did they would be old and gray. This is going to be the most exciting team we've had in a while, and I've been to a couple of play-offs games this decade (thanks Figgsy) and the garden was absolutely crazy for the deciding game in the last Sixers series.
Unfortunately, in the FleetCenter/ Bank North Garden, when the teams get good, the expensive fans show up. In the dying days of the Old Garden the rabid fans were already on the decline. Even before the Bruins folded shop and left town to play for the Avs and Sharks, it was nothing like going to see a hockey game in Montreal or a basketball game in Utah (I can't believe I praised Utah fans). Legend has it, refs must call the first two penalties against the visitors during any play-off game or the fans will tear them to pieces.
At the last Bruins game I went to, I was cheering one Bruins goal and the guy next to me asked why I was so loud. I was loud because Ray was taking us back into the play-offs, but it seemed like I was the only one watching hockey, everyone was watching golf. It killed me to watch the Montreal games where the refs looked genuinely afraid to make a call against the home team. During play-off runs, some cities brought thunder sticks and cowbells, we brought our golf clap.
I'll admit that a Jacobs-run team is tough to cheer for given the accusation that his company has killed a reporter with a car bomb (see: Emprise). But not even trying to give the team home ice advantage is utterly unthinkable to me. It was the same way in that last Nets play-off series.
Jason Kidd was diving under Celtics lay-ups, and getting the call. Few fans yelled anything. I couldn't believe my ears. The same city that rocked the Garden so loud, the cameras looked like they were filming an earthquake had gone silent. The same city that littered the field with debris after one two many Yankees calls in the late nineties couldn't protest or didn't know the rules.
Kidd got all the calls, mostly because the fans didn't stand up to the refs, and we lost a close game in the play-offs. Now the Bruins are dead to the city, and this happened years before the NHL died in the US. The Celtics are going to be the hot ticket once again, but who is going to show up. If the sixth man can't show up and do our part, it's pretty much a lost cause.
I have a few friends who have season tickets, and I know they will do their part, but I hope the old guard can crawl out of the woodwork and be the fans that cheered all those banners to the roof.
So get out there and scream and go nuts on each call. Blast the roof off the new Garden, and make me forget the years of apathy the hastened the decline of the residents of the Garden.