Boston Celtics Faithful Show Commitment and Support in Defeat

With three minutes and 11 seconds left in the game, the 22-point deficit the Boston Celtics found themselves in only felt worse as they watched the TD Garden empty out into the streets during Miami's timeout.

As play resumed the remaining fans, the true Celtics Faithful, gazed upon the court to see the Big Three slumped back in their chairs exhausted from the devastating blow LeBron James & Co. just bestowed upon them. Although the stadium was mostly deserted the remaining fans began to chant "Let's Go Celtics," and their few voices combined to fill "The Jungle" with noise once again for the remaining three minutes and 11 seconds. 

The chant can be heard at any home game during pretty ordinary stretches of play, but this time it meant so much more than to just encourage Marquis Daniels and the rookie E'Twaun Moore to put up the remaining nine points the home team would score in this game. The fans were trying to convey a message to the entire team, especially the veterans whose heads hung as they watched the waning seconds of the game that they should have used to clinch a berth to the NBA Finals. The Celtics Faithful were showing this team that they hadn't given up on them, that even though they face a challenge in going to South Beach to get a victory—the hometown fans would still be screaming their support as loud as they could. 

It was a chant that attempted to lift the spirits of the team and show them that they still had fans that greatly believed in them—no matter the odds—and perhaps to even inspire them to get a better look at the people they were truly fighting for. The C's will have to go and win this series in the most challenging way possible—away in the MVP's lair without their amazing fans around them—but hopefully this chant that lasted until the final buzzer will ring in their ears as they take the court on Saturday.

The Celtics Faithful used this chant to show their team that they mean everything to Boston, and they will support them to the end. When they get off the plane in Miami the chant will remind them "We are not South Beach," and when they step out of the tunnel onto the Heat court, the chant will tell them "We are Causeway Street." When everything is on the line and they have to dominate to survive, they will remember their fans chants and realize "We are the Celtics." And when they leave that court headed to the NBA Finals for the third time in the Big Three Era, they will understand why the fans stayed to show their support.