Celtics notebook: Home sweet home, now with fans! Evan Fournier set to make debut

The Celtics are starting a stretch of basketball that is completely foreign to them this season. 

They get to play at home. 

“I don’t know how many teams have played more road games than us,” Brad Stevens recently said. “I certainly feel it, personally, And certainly this has been a tough stretch. But I think that guys will welcome the opportunity to sleep in their own bed and get into a routine at home.”

To answer Stevens’ question: no one has played more. The Celtics are one of four teams to have played 20 games at home. 

“I've been looking forward to this for a long time. Just feel like I've been on the road, this whole year, this whole season,” Kemba Walker said after the team’s Monday morning shoot-around. “It's really, really great to get back home and be here for an extended period of time and not have to worry about leaving. So I think it’s gonna help us. It should help us establish a good rhythm. Just being at home, it’s really good for us.”

Of course, just being home doesn’t guarantee the Celtics will play well. In fact, because of the late start in Oklahoma City Saturday night, the Celtics didn’t fly back to Boston until yesterday. 

“We play a bunch of good teams (and) it will almost feel like we’re still on the road there at least for a couple of games,” Stevens said. “But it will be nice to be at home, get a chance to sleep in our own beds, see our families, and hopefully build a little bit with a little bit less bouncing all over the place.”

That’s where the big advantages are. Being home brings some more stability, especially when NBA teams are severely limited in what they can do when they’re on the road. 

“Can’t do anything. Literally can’t do anything,” Walker explained. “We can go outside for, what, an hour I guess now, but everything is just different. Like, you can’t go to dinner, can't go visit your friends that you have on the road. It's just most of the time you’re just kind of cooped up in the room or just around the hotel. It’s just different.”

In a way, the league has tried to create a traveling bubble, but that hasn’t come with the same advantages of what they actually pulled off at the end of last season.

“I think that was one of the things about the bubble that was actually good, right? Like we had three hours on the practice court together but then we had a meal room that was right behind one of the courts,” Stevens said. “You could just spend time together. There were other disadvantages of that experience. But it’s one of the things that hopefully we get to the point where next year we’re able to be a little bit more normal. But yeah it’s challenging, but everybody is dealing with that. Still get a chance to compete every night. Still get a chance to hoop. That’s a pretty good life.”

FANS IN THE STANDS

One other thing that will be different for the Celtics is that fans will actually be in the TD Garden when they tip off tonight:

“We have some great fans, especially in that building,” Walker said. “The energy is always electric whenever the fans get the opportunity to show up. So, I think, even though it's gonna be a small amount of people, I think it's gonna be really great just getting to see people in the stands and hear some real fan noise instead of some fake fan noise. It’ll be cool.” 

The building will only be allowed 12% capacity, which works out to be about 2,300 fans. But 2,300 people reacting to a Robert Williams alley-oop is better than zero people reacting to it. 

EVAN FOURNIER IN, JAYLEN BROWN OUT

Evan Fournier’s time in the health and safety protocol is over. It appears something connected to his travel from Orlando to Boston required him to enter the protocol. He will be available when Boston takes on New Orleans.

Jaylen Brown will not be. He’s out with a left hip contusion. He took a couple of hard falls against the Oklahoma City Thunder, and he’s been banged up in general, so he was due for a day off. 

Semi Ojeleye’s oblique strain could cost him the whole homestand. Tristan Thompson and Romeo Langford both remain in the health and safety protocol.

“PRAY FOR THE BEST, BUT PREPARE FOR THE WORST”

Marcus Smart is still a member of the Boston Celtics, but that seemed to be in question if you believed any of the rumors circulating. Smart says he took it all in stride.  

“I think any time you hear your name in trade talks, you prepare for the worst. You pray for the best, but prepare for the worst,” Smart said. “This is seven years in for me. My name’s been in trade talks every year. So it’s nothing new. It’s a business. And sometimes we get so attached to guys and players and teammates, to this organization, that we forget that.”

The Celtics did have to send out three players, Daniel Theis, Javonte Green, and Jeff Teague, to acquire Fournier. Smart is a bit relieved that he wasn’t one of them. 

“We’re human. Especially when you’ve been in one place for a very long time and your name comes up in trade rumors,” he said. “You’re definitely, like I said, just preparing for anything to happen. I wasn’t really concerned, but I was prepared.”

Green’s departure was tough on Jayson Tatum. Green was Tatum’s best friend on the team. 

“Didn’t see that coming,” Tatum said. “Woo is someone I’m super super close with. Loved having him around. That was tough for all of us, especially myself, somebody I’ve got real close with as a friend and he helped us in the locker room, and the time he did get an opportunity. But I guess that’s just part of it.”