BOSTON – During a pregame phone call with his family Friday night, Celtics coach Brad Stevens received a simple, yet an insightful piece of advice from his young daughter to take into his team’s matchup against the Detroit Pistons.
“It’s time to give the people what they want,” Kinsley Stevens told her dad.
That was all that she said, though there was no need to say any more.
What the people of TD Garden wanted was Tacko Fall – the 7-foot-5 rookie center who has developed into a Boston folk hero in just a matter of months.
Fall, who has been with the Maine Red Claws of the G League for a good portion of the season, had yet to see a minute of regular-season action inside TD Garden heading into Friday night’s game. Celtics fans in attendance wanted to change that, so they began voicing their request early and often during the 114-93 blowout of the Pistons.
The first “We want Tacko!” chant rang out at the 8:40 mark of the second quarter, and it would not be the last. The cry grew louder and more persistent as the game wore on, causing the normally even-keeled Celtics coach to break out into laughter.
“I was laughing the whole time everybody was chanting, because all I could think about was Kinsley leading the cheers,” Stevens recalled after the game.
By the fourth quarter, even Fall’s teammates had begun to join the cause. They were bobbing their heads to the rhythmic chants and Jayson Tatum, at one point, playfully pretended to shove Fall into the game.
“Obviously the crowd wanted him in the game, and we wanted Tacko in the game, so I was trying to get him in there as early as I could,” Tatum said with a smile.
The chant reached an eardrum-rattling level at the 6:23 mark of the fourth quarter while Enes Kanter was shooting a pair of free throws. It caused a smile to break out on Stevens’ face once more, and he even beckoned to the crowd to get louder. Then, he finally caved and gave the people what they wanted.
“I knew it was coming, it was just a matter of when,” Fall said of the anticipation he felt before Stevens called out his name. “JT tried to force me to go in first, and Coach was amping up the crowd even more, and then he turned around and said ‘Tacko, go in.’”
Fall leapt off his seat, tore off his warmup gear and trotted over to the scorer’s table, all while the crowd went berserk. He checked in two minutes later to a deafening round of applause and a standing ovation that would continue on for the rest of the game.
Most players would have been anxious stepping into such a situation, but Fall said his nerves had subsided before he stepped onto the court.
“It was just a matter of going out there and having fun,” he said.
Which is exactly what he did on both ends of the floor.
Fall’s rim-protection skills came into play at the 1:49 mark, as he stuffed Sekou Doumbouya's lay-up attempt in suffocating fashion. He then ran up-court and displayed his offensive post skills, shaking off 7-foot Pistons center Thon Maker with a series of post moves before delivering a jump-hook shot for his first bucket.
Fall closed out the game with a driving dunk, for which he barely had to leave the ground. He finished the night with five points, two rebounds and one block in just under five minutes of action.
It was an incredible introduction for the rookie big man, but he also acknowledged that he has a great deal of work to do in order to fulfill his NBA goals.
“I have a long way to go,” Fall said. “I have to stay the course, trust in the plan they have for me and things will work out.
“There’s a few areas where I feel I can do better. I mean, I’m pretty good defensively, but there’s still things I feel I can do better. I feel like I have so much more potential. I just don’t want to be average. So, I’ve just got to keep working.”
Fall also knows that if he keeps working, then there will be more opportunities to give people what they want.
What they want is Tacko Time.
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