In addition to watching games as thrilling as Tuesday’s Jazz-Clippers tilt, we are witnesses to a kind of natural experiment. Fans were gone for so long, first in the Herculean effort in sterility that was “The Bubble,” and next in the actual arenas in which players are used to their consistent presence. There’s been a lot of coverage regarding the bad effects of fans returning, after such a long time away from arenas. That’s understandable, as shockingly negative incidents tend to attract more attention than positive interactions. In totality, the bad behavior of certain fans has obscured another story: How does the game itself change when fans are there to cheer and boo?
They certainly appear to have an emotional impact on, say, a slumping Paul George, when he’s hearing
