BOSTON — As Al Horford weighed his future as a free agent in the summer of 2016, Celtics executive Danny Ainge told him: “You can win championships in a lot of places, but there’s no There’s nothing like winning in Boston.”
Eight years later, in his second tour of duty with the Celtics, Horford, 38, lived up to his promise as the team’s elder statesman, helping out Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown — the talents from around the world that he led to the game’s biggest stadium. milestone – winning the franchise’s record 18th NBA championship.
“That stuck with me from that game,” said Horford, who contributed nine points and nine rebounds to the 106-88 victory over the Dallas Mavericks. “I was like, ‘Man, I’m trying to be great, and that’s what I want.’ The fact that it happened, that it happened – JT, JB stepped up and led us – it’s special.”
It was Ainge who traded Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett, the last vestiges of Boston’s last championship, for a set of draft picks to the Brooklyn Nets in 2013. Two became Tatum and Brown. And it was Horford who served as their veteran, taking them each to the Eastern Conference Finals in their rookie seasons.
“Al Horford is a true legend and a hero,” Brown said. “It was great being his teammate.”
All three, more than anyone on this list, are Celtics. Not just in the sense that they played in Boston. They won here now. They are in the club. Their numbers will be retired in the rafters of TD Garden, alongside the championship banner. Alongside Russell and Cousy, Havlicek and Cowens, Bird and McHale, there will be Tatum and Brown. And make no mistake: there will also be Horford. He is now part of it.
As the minutes ticked away after Boston’s blowout victory, 2008 Celtics champion Eddie House turned to this reporter and said, “Hey, Yahoo Sports, write this down: There’s 18 of them now. You see it “, he said: gesturing to the MVP of the 1981 NBA Finals, Cedric Maxwell, “and me,” he added, “and them,” gesturing to the floor, where Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla , withdrew his starters one by one from the match.
“We are all champions,” House said.
This is what it means to be a member of the Celtics. All season long, Boston’s rallying cry has been “DIFFERENT HERE,” and it is. There’s a brotherhood that runs through league history, lined with championship rings, and every member of this year’s roster — from Jrue Holiday, Derrick White and Kristaps Porziņģis to Sam Hauser, Luke Kornet and Oshae Brissett — became life members. .
None more so than Tatum and Brown, who are only scratching the surface of their legacies in Boston.
“We’ve been through a lot,” said Brown, who won the Finals MVP over Tatum by a 7-4 vote. “We’ve been playing together for seven years now. We’ve been through a lot, losses, expectations. The media said all kinds of things: “We can’t play together. We will never win.” We heard everything. But we just blocked it, and we kept going.
At 26 and 27 respectively, Tatum and Brown spoke as if this was forever in the works, even though they know it was longer for Horford. It only seems like forever because of the adversity their Celtics have faced — six Eastern Conference Finals appearances in Brown’s eight seasons, five losses, including last year’s embarrassment to the Miami Heat, and a 2-1 final loss leading to the Golden State Warriors in 2022.
“But all these experiences led up to this,” Brown said. “All the times we failed, we felt like we were letting the city down, letting ourselves down, that’s how we get to this moment. And it’s even sweeter to have to go through the whole journey ., the heartbreak, the embarrassment, the loss, to get to the top of the mountain, it’s awesome and well done to all the fans and the city of Boston.
These losses take another day now that they have won. No more criticism. After all those missed opportunities, those dwindling leads that left everyone wondering if they were built for this, if Tatum and Brown could co-exist, no one can take that title away from them. They were built for this. They coexist as champions.
Now we wonder what else they can accomplish. Now we look back at all those playoff losses and see the playoff scars healed. Now we see how much they’ve done – 235 playoff games between them, more than most players their age – and have to recognize the increase in Hall of Fame resumes. Today, they surpass the Celtics records held by legends, and you have to accept that they are one of them.
“They’re under so much scrutiny and they’re under so much pressure to not win or not make it to the Eastern Conference Finals (six times in eight years), or even to make it to the Finals and not overcome that hurdle,” Holiday said. “I feel like people are finally seeing the relationship that they have. They’re seeing that from the beginning, they’ve always done it together. They’ve never compared each other. They’ve always been joyful and happy together. one for the other…I hope it’s a burden that doesn’t weigh on their shoulders.
“But another burden is having to start again.”
The only legacy discussion now is what these Celtics can add to it. Their playoff rotation is signed through next season, and it’ll be hard for any of them to leave Boston now that they’ll never have to buy another drink in the city again. The only question is if they can add more streamers to the rafters.
“We had to be relentless,” Tatum said. “You had to be on the other side and lose in the finals and literally be at the lowest point in a basketball career that you could get to, next year, the year after that, thinking that this would be the moment, and being short again People have said it before, but being short and having failures makes this moment even better because you know what it feels like to lose You know what it feels like. to be on the other side of it, to be in the locker room and hear the other team celebrate, hear them celebrate at home, it was devastating.
“And now to raise you in a space where all your favorite players are, everyone they consider great or legends has won a championship, and all the guys I looked up to have won a championship – several championships So now I can, like, walk in these rooms and be a part of this. It’s a hell of a feeling,” he said, pausing, “I’ve dreamed about what it would be like, but this is 10 times better.”
This one is eternal. The next? This city expects it. That’s exactly how things happen here, and no one understands it better than Horford and the two rising legends he’s mentored thus far. They’re Bostonians now.