Requiem for a win

Celtics off to historic start at the Garden

NBA. The Garden goes black, the chorus of “Requiem for a Dream” pounds the speakers, and Celtics highlights take over the video boards before every home game.

Then, the music stops and the building goes completely dark for a split second before Paul Pierce shouts to the crowd on the board above, “We’re baaaaack!”

Truth be told.

The Celtics are 9-0 at home this season, the seventh time in franchise history they’ve opened the year with nine straight wins on Causeway Street and the first time since 1985-86, when they won their last NBA championship.
If the C’s are to break the team’s all-time mark — 12-0 in 1984-85, when they lost to the Lakers in the NBA Finals — they’ll need to go through the Raptors, Kings, Bucks and Pistons.

“One of our goals was to establish home,” Kevin Garnett said. “You go to some arenas, [such as] Utah, some arenas where you know it’s going to be difficult, the Palace [in Detroit]. Those are arenas that jump right off to me as difficult places to play. We’re trying to establish that here.”

The Celtics are outscoring teams by 20.3 points per game at the Garden this season, and their field goal percentage, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks per game are all above their road averages.

And, in Boston’s last two home games, they’ve held the Knicks and Cavaliers to season lows in points.

“Your home court is something you’ve got to protect,” Pierce said. “We want teams to feel like when they come in here, it’s going to be a long night. We’re starting to establish that now. It’s something that we didn’t have. In the past, I would go in certain arenas, and I’d be like, ‘We’ve got to be near perfect to get a win. And we want teams to think that way when they come to the Garden.”