Thanks to CelticsBlog, I had the pleasure of covering the final two games of the Boston Celtics’ regular season as credentialed media, making the journey from Tasmania, Australia. I won’t bore you with the details of the journey, but despite a 45-hour, door-to-door journey and some horrendous jet lag, I still had the time of my life.
Quickly, for those curious as to how and why an Australian became so passionate about the Boston Celtics: my dad is from Andover, Mass., and moved to Australia when he was 25 years old, against his mother’s wishes — “you’ll meet a girl, and never come back.” Mothers are always right. I was lucky enough for my Dad to pass on the passion for Boston sports.
Due to the time difference between Boston and the East Coast of Australia, Celtics games are typically anywhere between 9.30 am – 12.30 pm. Perfect if you have a free day. But on days that either of us are working or engaged in an activity that has sadly had to be prioritised over watching the Boston Celtics, we developed a simple code to avoid spoiling the results of these games. A quick “I finished the game” text to let the other party know that we are free to start breaking down the game and gushing about how mind boggling it is that Jayson Tatum already looks this good less than 12 months removed from tearing his Achilles.
There was no amount of jet lag that could dampen my spirit as I made my way to TD Garden from the South End, where I stayed during my five days in Boston. Boston was blessed with lovely weather during my stay, so I opted to walk whenever possible, including to TD Garden, through Boston Common, which was packed with people and squirrels, which were a nice novelty addition to my walk. The squirrels were the novelty, not the people. We have a few of those in Tasmania.
When I’m back home in Australia, whenever I spot someone wearing Celtics gear, I’ll often stop them and deliver a quick quip about the team. This season it was a lot of “how about Jaylen Brown, hey?” Often, the response is “oh I just like the gear.” But sometimes, I strike gold and find another Celtics sicko to have a chat with. I had to fight to break this habit once arriving in Boston. Otherwise, I would have spoken to the entire city’s population in my five days. This urge was especially hard to fight the closer I got to the Garden, and as the closer I got, the thicker the stream of Celtics gear became.
I was walking behind a group of one dad and five young boys, all decked out in Cs gear and were bouncing with excitement for the Pelicans game. The kids were arguing over who their favourite Celtics were. Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum featured prominently in this passionate debate. Payton Pritchard received an honourable mention.
The only other time I had been to TD Garden was in the first round of the 2022 playoffs when the Celtics faced off against the Brooklyn Nets for Game 2 of that series’ a game that featured Payton Pritchard sparking a double-digit comeback. That time, I turned left as we got to the gigantic TD Garden foyer, to make our way up the main entrance escalators. This time, I made my way past that entrance, and around the building towards the staff and media entrance. I hadn’t been nervous until this moment. While I knew that Celtics PR was expecting me, it still did not feel real that a media credential would be waiting for me.
I put my bag through security, told the PR lady who I was, she handed me my credentials, and not thirty seconds later, I was walking through the tunnel and found myself six feet from the parquet. I located my fellow beat reporters, who at least pretended to be very excited to see me and were impressed that I had made the journey across the world to join them in covering the Celtics.
I was just in time to watch the bench guys go through a high-intensity workout; Amari Williams, Max Shulga, and John Tonje were battling it out. I knew, conceptually, how big NBA players (and coaches) are, but seeing Amari and Tonje banging bodies in the post hammered home that reality. The next thing I know, I hear a Ric Flair-style “Wooooo” from behind me. It was assistant Coach Sam Cassell making a grand entrance onto the court. I’m told this is a regular occurrence. Cassell jumped straight into trash-talking all three young players for getting scored on by each other and not corralling rebounds.
As we inched closer to game time, the arena slowly filled up, not just with fans but with some familiar faces. The experience of being at TD Garden, wandering through the labyrinthine hallways of the bowels of TD Garden, was like being dropped into the middle of my favourite TV show — one I’ve watched religiously for most of my life, and feel like I know all the characters intimately.
I bumped into Drew Carter in the media dining room, as we both went to grab a snack. “Wow, you’re in Boston?! How’s it going, mate?” The fact that Drew remembered me from his appearance on First to the Floor was incredible. Moments like almost crashing into Derrick White as I rounded a corner as I looked for a bathroom will never be forgotten. Thankfully, it was just almost; I would never have forgiven myself if I were the one to give Derrick a knee contusion. It was a truly surreal feeling.
Next, it was time for Joe Mazzulla’s pregame press conference, an obligation I’m not sure Joe would describe as his favourite part of being head coach of the Boston Celtics. At this moment, the press conference room is buzzing with various conversations. I believe Robbie Hodin and I were discussing the merits of Paolo Banchero as part of the “who would you rather play: Philly or Orlando?” conversation that everyone had multiple times in my two days at The Garden. A hush came over the room as Mazzulla marched towards the interview table. I sat back and observed the media veterans like Gary Washburn and John Karalis do the heavy lifting for this pregame interview. I wanted to see how the mechanics of the interviews work before I launched myself into the firing line of a Joe Mazzulla response.
It was then time to make the journey up to the rafters, which is where I would be sitting, a perfect vantage point for seeing the activity of all ten players on the court at once. I know players from the Celtics and around the league consistently mention TD Garden as one of the best atmospheres in the NBA, but I was still blown away by the crowd in both the game against the New Orleans Pelicans and the regular-season finale against the Orlando Magic. In the first game, the Pelicans were without the top end of their rotation, and for the final game of the regular season, the Celtics were missing their top seven rotation players. I would not have faulted the Garden faithful for conserving their energy for the playoffs. However, the energy was palpable from the player intros.
Despite both games on paper being somewhat underwhelming, both games overdelivered. On night one, the Celtics blasted the Pelicans and fell one three-pointer short of breaking the NBA record for most threes in a game. You could feel the crowd’s energy build as the record came within reach. It was as exciting as a 36-point blowout could be.
The second night against the Orlando Magic delivered one of the most memorable games of the year, a game that the Celtics were given no chance to win, which is the 2025–2026 Celtics’ specialty — they came out and laid the smackdown on the Orlando Magic. On that night, I was treated to the Garden crowd losing their minds amidst a third quarter avalanche fueled by Baylor Scheierman, Ron Harper Jr., and Luka Garza dismantling the Magic’s starters.
As the games conclude, it was time to race back down for Joe Mazzulla’s postgame press conference. After the Pelicans game, I was ready to ask Mazzulla a question about Nikola Vucevic stringing another strong performance together after a solid second half against the New York Knicks. As to be expected, I was towards the back end of Joe’s press conference, giving priority to the more experienced reporters, which led to the great Bobby Manning of CelticsBlog and CLNS beating me to the punch on the Vucevic topic. I was, in theory, ready for this situation, as I had prepared a long list of questions to ask Joe during the aforementioned 45-hour journey across the world.
However, I hadn’t been rehearsing those questions in my head for the last 15 minutes. I was already nervous, but it was too late to back out. I had already signalled to Celtics PR that I had a question; there was no stopping the microphone being placed in my hands at this point. I have no idea what John Karalis asked Joe; all I could do was try to formulate my question. The mic was passed to me. I could feel my heart beating in every cell in my body. I delivered my question about Joe’s perspective on the playoffs being different from the regular season, and Mazzulla blessed me with an introspective, thoughtful answer, of which I heard some of.
The following night after the Magic game concluded, I was at least 50% less nervous when the microphone was passed to me. I was lucky enough to get to ask Joe another question, and then what is a rare occurrence at this point in the season, a player at the podium as well. After the Orlando Magic game, it was Baylor Scheierman who had just dropped a career-high 30 point, 7 rebound, 7 assist game on the heads of the Orlando Magic. At this point, the confidence was brewing. I even started my question with a “Hey, Baylor,” to which he gave me a head nod. Did we just become best friends?
A couple of miscellaneous moments that would feel rude not to share: Dalano Banton had just been brought back by the Celtics for the third time to play in Game 82. Banton had just finished his pregame warmup as the President of Basketball Operations, Brad Stevens, made his way over to him. They shared what appeared to be an incredibly positive interaction. I found this interesting as their relationship is somewhat complicated. On one hand, the Celtics and Brad clearly like Banton as they keep bringing him in. On the other hand, they don’t like him enough to keep him around long term. Well, Banton gave the Celtics front office another reminder as to why they like him by showing out in a monster win against the Magic.
I was just a few feet away when observing Ron Harper Jr.’s warmup. Something that jumped out at me was that the word “warmups” doesn’t do justice to what the players go through before a game. The assistant coaches who play one-on-one with the players are all former Division I. In this case, six-foot-six, and obviously incredible at basketball. They go at it during these warmups. Ron Harper Jr. made this specific coach look like a high school player, effortlessly cooking him while sweat was pouring out of the coach. This showing during the warmup ended up being a precursor to the best night of Ron Harper Jr.’s young career.
Finally, one of my favourite things about this experience was that, after all the post-game interviews had wrapped up and players and coaches had left the building, the reporters had started filing stories and finishing recording podcasts, a quiet settled over the arena. Once I had finished writing on both nights, I made a point to go back through the tunnel to take a final look at the parquet and soak in the experience of the night.
From feeling like a part of the beat reporting team to bumping into Derrick White, there were so many moments I was trying to burn into my memory. My expectations for this experience could not have been higher, and somehow they were blown out of the water. I am eternally grateful to CelticsBlog for giving me this opportunity. I hope to be back in the building again one day.
