Pregame Post-Ups: Overcoming Opening Night Nerves

BOSTON – Opening Night is finally here, and so is the inevitable anxiety that comes with it. The Boston Celtics and Philadelphia 76ers will not only tip off their respective seasons Tuesday night at TD Garden, but they will also be responsible for cutting the ribbon on the 2018-19 NBA campaign for all teams league-wide.

There’s a lot of pressure that comes with opening up the NBA season under the national spotlight, so how will both teams get past those nerves?

“Everybody’s gonna be jacked up and amped up about the game, so you just have to do your job well,” Celtics coach Brad Stevens said ahead of the opening tip. “That’s one of the tasks that great teams are able to do, and so we’ll try to focus on that. There’ll be a lot of energy, and there will probably be some missed opportunities early because of that, but whichever team settles into that sooner rather than later will be in good shape.”

Having a youthful squad can magnify the stresses that come with Opening Night. That’s one of the battles that Philadelphia – a team with four players under the age of 25 in its starting lineup – could potentially face.

With that in mind, Sixers coach Brett Brown made it a point to emphasize how to manage Opening Night pressures, especially while playing in a hostile environment.

“I think there’s historically anxiety,” Brown said in regard to season-openers. “I feel part of my mission with our guys – our young guys especially – is to talk about a psychological stability and to just sort of a focus on the things that need to be focused on.

“Getting through the referees (and the new rule changes on contact), getting through this arena, getting through the emotion of Opening Night, there needs to be a real psychological stability with how we approach it from a mindset perspective.”

While both teams may be anxious heading into this matchup, there is also tremendous collective excitement. This is a special matchup between two teams with great history, who are both also on the verge of becoming elite squads for years to come.

“When you’re in the East and when you’re in Boston and Philly, the history of the Boston–Philly rivalry and certainly all of the great games that have been played, it’s exciting for us that are involved in it for sure,” said Stevens. “And hopefully the rest of the NBA and everybody that’s an NBA fan can appreciate watching good basketball on both sides. Our job and our responsibility is trying to play that way.”

Playing that way will happen once the nerves are overcome. And whichever team is able to do that first may have the advantage in taking home the first win of the 2018-19 NBA season.

- Taylor Snow

addByline("Taylor C. Snow", "Celtics.com", "taylorcsnow");