BOSTON - As the buzzer sounded in overtime and the final score read "Celtics 104, Hawks 95", there wasn't a fan in green not smiling from ear to ear, high-fiving a friend, or hugging a total stranger bonded only by the team that they love.
The TD Garden was a happy place to be, and even after the Celtics made their way off the court and down into the tunnel, plenty of fired up fans hung around just a bit longer, adrenaline still pumping through their veins after an exhilarating game from start to finish.
But "happy" is not what you would call the TD Garden for 53 minutes of basketball on Sunday. Sure, there were moments of jubilation, but just as quickly as Celtics fans could cheer on their team after a big shot, they were back to doing the things that make Boston of the most hostile environments to play in.
Add the Hawks to that list of opponents that have had their brains hijacked by C's fans, and name guard Dennis Schroder the captain of Team Rattled.
Schroder has become Public Enemy No. 1 in Boston for his scrappy play often times leading to scraps with Celtics players.
He's gotten into it with just about every player on the team. He got into it a bit with Jae Crowder on Sunday. We know what Isaiah Thomas got away with doing to him in Game 3. And we know Schroder didn't like it, either.
And now we know Celtics fans really, really don't like him.
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They booed him every single time he touched the ball. And they booed him loud. There's no chance Schroder has ever heard a round of boos that loud in his lifetime. The only time he's going to hear louder ones are when the Hawks return for a Game 6 on Thursday.
And those boos got to him.
Schroder finished just 3-for-13 for seven points. He was a minus-20 on the night, the second-worst on the team.
"I wasn't even expecting that," Amir Johnson said. "I don't know what he said to the media or what but the crowd to just come out and boo him every time he touched the ball, I don't know what it was, but it definitely got in his head I felt like it because every shot he took or every time he touched the ball, they gave him a loud boo. So that was dope."
A basketball game is no longer just a basketball game these days. It's an event. There are dancers, promotions during timeouts, music, and plenty more. But the Celtics game operations staff does a good job of letting the fans take over at certain points. Whether it's getting on an opposing player, getting on the referees, or getting behind the C's, when it gets loud, it gets really loud.
Some players revel in being the bad guy. LeBron James comes to mind. Rajon Rondo comes to mind. Perhaps Schroder is one of those players, too. But on this night he seemed clearly affected by the attention directed at him.
"For sure. That's a part of being a young player," Crowder said. "He went one-on-one a couple times and that's what we want because we know their offense is not based on one-on-one play. But we felt like he tried to go one-on-one a few times, let the crowd get into it, but that's part of playoff basketball as well."
Every player is going to say they "have the best fans in the world". That's not a story. But Sunday's game was a reminder that this Celtics crowd really can have a major impact on a game's outcome.
It's certainly something Schroder won't forget.
"Absolutely. It's crazy in there," Turner said of the TD Garden. "I think they definitely help us out a lot especially when we go on runs. It becomes a loud gym and it's hard to execute and sometimes if you're a nervous individual it definitely has an impact on it."