If you have watched any playoff basketball this year, you may have noticed a difference in energy in the arenas around the league. This is because more fans, and in some places many more fans, have been allowed into the buildings around the NBA for the postseason. The Knicks allowed 16,254 fans in to watch game two of their series against the Hawks, only to be topped the next day by Miami when 17,000 fans watched the Bucks take a 3-0 series lead in South Beach.
It has been five years since Dallas has hosted a playoff game in American Airlines Center, and when the largest capacity crowd for an NBA game since March of 2020 (17,705 people or 92 percent capacity) was admitted for Game 3 of Mavericks and Clippers, the city of Dallas was ready to explode.