Celtics need to make TD Garden a homecourt advantage in 2024 playoffs NBC Sports Boston [Video]

Nothing hammers home Al Horford’s basketball longevity like the fact that he was on the floor at TD Garden with the Atlanta Hawks when they pushed the 2007-08 Boston Celtics to Game 7 of an Eastern Conference first-round series.

Sixteen years later, Horford can admit now that his eighth-seeded Hawks, despite their success at times in that series, never really stood a chance against the top-seeded Celtics. Boston won the four home games of that first-round series by an average of 25.3 points per game, including a 34-point triumph in deciding Game 7.

Horford marveled at the energy inside TD Garden back then, and did so again in 2012 when the Celtics outlasted the Hawks in six games in another first-round showdown. But even when Atlanta broke through and eliminated a different Boston squad in six games in the opening round of the 2016 playoffs, Horford couldn’t stop thinking about …