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Oh, Bibby.
By Kaz on Wed, 04/23/2008 - 9:26am
Mike Bibby of the Atlanta Hawks called out Boston fans before practice at the Garden. He said the crowd at the first playoff game between the Celtics and Hawks were "fair weather" and only loud at the beginning of the game. Bibby further ran his mouth to suggest that it's only bandwagoning that has all the fans out right now and he didn't see "three-fourths of them last year" when he played here.
Well, Ted McEnroe of NECN ran the attendence numbers at The Boston Score blog:
This year, the Celtics averaged 18,624 fans a game - 100% of capacity. You know that the hard way if you tried to get tickets late in the year. The Hawks averaged 16,843. That’s 86 % of their capacity.
But hey, the Green are kings this year. What about last year when the weather at the Garden was decidedly “wicked bad?”
The Green were 24-58. Worst in the Eastern Conference. But they averaged 16,843 per game, about 86 percent of capacity. The Hawks: 6 games better at 30-52. But more than a thousand fans worse, at 15,594 - 78 percent of capacity.
Stick that in your bibby, Mr. 2-for-10. I'm sure he's going to hear from every single fan tonight.
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Comments
They Never Learn
How many times do athletes have to badmouth another team (or their fans) before they realize that the only thing they're doing is adding fuel to the fire and making it harder for themselves and their teams? What a dope!
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
Dope
What Bibby doesn't understand is just how vocal loyal Celtics fans have been during our 100 years in darkness. We've been up and down, all over ownership and Danny Ainge to fix this mess. Now the mess is "fixed" and we are celebrating with enthusiasm.
Plus, you can tell Bibby hasn't been in Atlanta long. That city has the worst record ever when it comes to sport attendance. The Braves (who I loathe) are perennial contenders yet they can't come close to a sellout. How many other sports franchises have come and left Atlanta because the city's "fans" won't turn out to support their teams?
The fans were there last year
Mike Bibby has never been known as the quintessential intelligent player, more so a ball hog. I went to a couple of Celtics games last year when they were horrible and there were still a lot of fans there. Of course not as many as this year's team. But the Celts new ownership did a good job of getting people into the seats even when the team was horrible and Gerald Green was touted as a NBA player.
Crazy Like A Fox
I think Bibby, a smart guy who's been around a while, knows what he's doing - setting himself up to take all the crap from fans and take a little pressure off guys like Smith and Horford, who've never been in a playoff situation before. It won't work, but I wouldn't be surprised if there's a method to this stupidity.
But for anyone in Atlanta to say anything about bandwagoners is ridiculous. This is a city that got so jaded with playoff failures that they couldn't even sell out Braves first-round games.
good thought
I never thought of that explanation. That's a good bet.
Paid attendance?
86% may have been paid attendance, not actual. ESPN has the numbers but doesn't say which. That seems like a high number if you're trying to figure out who actually showed up at the games. I was at some sparsely populated games last year. I don't know for sure though.
"sparsely"
Actually, "sparsely" is too extreme. I'll just say that 86% seems a bit high.
Bibby Heads
If you're going to the game tonight, you might like to
and paste it to a stick for waving around (or fashion it into a mask, if you don't mind being butt-ugly.)
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
Scoreboard
How excited can you get when you're up 20something points?
I think Bibby's gonna find out tonight
Because I don't think the crowd is going to stop razzing him all night.
I'll post here after I get back from the game.
The truth
The truth hurts.
boston.com/...celtics_diehards_pass_test_of_time
No
This is The Truth.
And so is this.
Bibby never touched the ball, even to relay a pass, without the entire place booing him for all four quarters. His 12 irrelevant points were by in-large free throws as he went 2-for-7 (to match his 2-for-10 Game 1 scoring) from the floor with 2 missed 3PAs on top. He also had all of 1 assist for his 28 minutes on the court (the least of any Atlanta starter tonight).
He was a festering pile of suck and his 1 TO is not indicative of how many plays he screwed up by falling down or driving to nowhere.
Towards the end of the night, a group finally got the whole crowd chanting "Ron-do's bet-ter {clap clap clapclapclap}" while Bibby was attempting to shoot yet another 2 FTs.
I have never heard a crowd single out and rag a player for an entire game before, but then again, I've never heard someone say something so dumb about a Boston sports crowd before either.