{"id":702967,"date":"2026-05-30T03:38:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T03:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/702967\/"},"modified":"2026-05-30T03:38:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T03:38:10","slug":"giannis-antetokounmpo-praises-celtics-fans-for-being-most-passionate-in-nba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/702967\/","title":{"rendered":"Giannis Antetokounmpo praises Celtics fans for being most passionate in NBA"},"content":{"rendered":"

There’s a long line of players who have waged war against the Boston Celtics<\/a> over the course of their careers and end up despising the Green Team. However, that list doesn’t seem to include Milwaukee Bucks<\/a> superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The 2-time MVP has great respect for the Celtics, as he’s defeated them in the playoffs before, and vice versa. Rather than developing a hatred for Beantown, Antetokounmpo has expressed his admiration for the historic organization multiple times. For instance, in April he credited Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla for fostering a winning culture this season despite the low expectations that stemmed from Boston superstar Jayson Tatum<\/a> being sidelined for over 60 games.<\/p>\n

“I talked with coach Joe Mazzulla,” Antetokounmpo told Lori Nickel of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel<\/a>. “I said, \u2018You had so many opportunities to make excuses, but you didn\u2019t…It\u2019s about the mentality that you instilled in your place.'”<\/p>\n

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Antetokounmpo praised the Celtics again this week. Or, more specifically, he complimented the dedicated crowd they have rooting for them at TD Garden.<\/p>\n

“I feel like the best arena was Boston,” Antetokounmpo said on a recent Twitch livestream with internet personality Marlon<\/a>. “Regular games, Boston (fans are) passionate.”<\/p>\n

While many wouldn’t give Antetokounmpo’s comments a second thought during a normal offseason, it’s far from a normal offseason. The Bucks center finds himself in trade rumors every day and Milwaukee<\/a> is hearing offers before the 2026 NBA Draft.<\/p>\n

Whether or not a deal gets done remains to be seen, but the Celtics are among the many NBA teams that have checked in on the 31-year-old’s availability. And if the C’s have anything going for them amid the Giannis sweepstakes, it’s that their entire franchise is focused on the one thing Antetokounmpo says he cares about most: winning.<\/p>\n

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This article originally appeared on Celtics Wire: Giannis Antetokounmpo speaks highly of Celtics fans, TD Garden<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There’s a long line of players who have waged war against the Boston Celtics over the course of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":702968,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[1222,49,48,8228,3556,90540,7670,8216,459,82],"class_list":["post-702967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-boston-celtics","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-giannis-antetokounmpo","tag-jayson-tatum","tag-joe-mazzulla","tag-milwaukee","tag-milwaukee-bucks","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=702967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702967\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/702968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=702967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=702967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=702967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}