Celtics beat Mavs to win 18th NBA championship

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BOSTON — The Boston Celtics are NBA champions once again, winning a landmark title Monday night that will reverberate from coast to coast and leave a legacy for the current stalwarts of this storied franchise.

The Celtics defeated the Dallas Mavericks 106-88 in Game 5 of the 2024 NBA Finals to win the series 4-1 and capture a league-record 18th NBA championship.

A sea of ​​green and white confetti fell from the rafters at TD Garden before Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla, the youngest coach in at least 48 years to win a title, hoisted the Larry O’Brien Trophy. Most of the Boston police force was stationed outside the arena, with area bars ordered not to let anyone in after halftime and asked to close their doors and windows if the celebration of the championship was getting out of control. An hour after the match, Celtic fans were climbing the lamp posts on Causeway Street outside the arena.

Why all the fuss about the NBA’s greatest franchise of all time? For the Celtics, it’s been a long time coming. Boston ended a 16-year title drought and broke a tie with rival Los Angeles Lakers that had stood since 2020.

“I mean, it’s going to be a night that I remember for the rest of my life, the game, the celebration, these moments,” said Celtics star and All-NBA First Team member Jayson Tatum. “I had to listen to all the crap people said about me, and tonight… it’s worth it.”

Tatum and Jaylen Brown, Celtics co-anchors since Tatum’s rookie season in 2017, can take their place among the Boston legends to hang banners in front of them. Tatum finished with 31 points, 11 assists and eight rebounds, while Brown added 21 points.

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Brown, who felt snubbed when he wasn’t named to any of the three All-NBA teams this season, is now on a hot streak for hardware. On Monday, Brown won the Bill Russell Award for NBA Finals MVP, which follows the MVP he won in the Conference Finals.

Brown averaged 20.8 points, 5.4 rebounds, 5.0 assists, 1.6 steals and 0.8 blocks in the Finals. Tatum was better statistically (more points, rebounds and assists), but Brown was the more stable player who made decisive plays earlier in the series when the games were closer.

“I can’t even express my emotions in words, it’s just that I’m blessed and I’m grateful,” Brown said, overcome with emotion as he reflected on his MVP award, the award named ‘after Russell, the king of all Celtic legends and a mentor to Brown.

“It was a complete team effort,” Brown continued. “It could have gone to anyone, it could have gone to Jayson. I can’t talk enough about his selflessness, I can’t talk enough about his attitude and how he approached not just the series or the Finals, but the playoffs in general.

Boston never trailed in the series and led by 21 points at halftime, thanks to a 49-foot 3-pointer by Payton Pritchard to beat the second-quarter buzzer. The best team in the NBA all season, the Celtics won their 80th game out of 101 by crushing Dallas on the glass (51 rebounds to 35) and scoring 10 additional points on the foul line.

Celtics center Kristaps Porziņģis, out since Game 2 due to a rare displaced tendon injury near his left ankle, returned for the clincher and scored five points. Jrue Holiday, who like Porziņģis was added last offseason to bolster this already rich roster, contributed 15 points. He is champion for the second time after winning in 2021 with the Milwaukee Bucks.

Tatum and Holiday have committed to playing for Team USA in the Paris Olympics, aiming to win a gold medal in the same summer months after a title. Holiday achieved that in 2021 when the Americans won gold in Tokyo.

Derrick White, a possible injury replacement for the Olympic team if needed, gave Boston 14 points and eight rebounds. He fell face first onto the field in the first half, cutting his lip and break a tooth.

“I would lose all my teeth for a championship,” White said.

The Mavericks, the No. 5 team in the West with only two rotation players over the age of 27, were led in scoring by Luka Dončić with 28 points and 12 rebounds. Kyrie Irving, the former Celtics player, suffered a tough Game 5 with 15 points on 5 of 16 shooting, which was worse than the score shown on the box.

Dallas made a roster change at the trade deadline by dealing veteran big men PJ Washington and Daniel Gafford. These moves changed the trajectory of the Mavs but were not enough for them to seriously compete with the Celtics.

“(The Celtics are) a great team,” said Dončić, who played the series with bruises to his chest and lower leg. “They’ve been together for a long time and they’ve had to go through everything, so we just have to watch them, see how they play, their maturity and they have great players.

“We can learn from this. We have to fight next season.

Dating back to Brown’s rookie season in 2016-17, Tatum and Brown helped Boston win six conference finals and two NBA Finals and finally broke through on Monday night. They set an NBA record for playoff games played together (107) before winning a title.

Together, they suffered a loss in the 2022 Finals to Golden State – they suffered a decisive loss in Game 6 at home – and nearly came back from a 3-0 deficit before falling in Game 7 of the Finals 2023 conference match against Miami. Tatum had the fifth most points in the playoffs at the time of his first title, behind Jerry West, LeBron James, Dirk Nowitzki and Kevin Durant.

“I think (Brown) and JT should have split (MVP), but those two guys in particular have, you know, almost been like students and (have) become teachers in their own right,” teammates Irving said of Tatum and Marron from 2017 to 2019.

Al Horford, the Celtics’ 38-year-old center, played in the second-most playoff games (186) before his first title. Only Karl Malone (193) played more. Horford finished with nine points and nine rebounds in 32 minutes.

On the other end of the spectrum, Mazzulla, 35, is the youngest coach since the ABA-NBA merger in 1976 to win a title. Mazzulla is the sixth coach to win at age 35 or younger and the first since Bill Russell in 1969.

“I think the most important thing, something that has really occurred to me throughout this process, is that we can’t lose sight of the people who came before us,” he said. Mazzulla said. “And I want to make sure that every single person that worked for the Celtics, that played for the Celtics that didn’t win, knows that their work and what they did didn’t go unnoticed or that it wasn’t doesn’t play a role in where we are today.

For more on Game 5 of the NBA Finals, follow AthleticismThe live blog of.

The Celtics are the first NBA No. 1 seed to win the playoffs since the Golden State Warriors beat the Cleveland Cavaliers in five games in the 2017 Finals. Boston also ended its second-longest lead between titles in franchise history. The longest was 22 seasons, from 1986 to 2008 – the last of the Celtics’ titles until this one.

“I think when you look at their seven-year journey, there have been some highs, there have been some learning experiences for them with wins and losses,” Dallas coach Jason Kidd said. “and so understanding for us, we’ve been together for five months., some of us, so it’s a really positive journey that we’ve had here. And we’ll see what we can do when we get to the final, in just understanding that we have to play our best basketball.

“Unfortunately, Boston was better than us in that series and they won the championship.”

Staff Writer James Jackson contributed to this story.

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(Photo: Elsa/Getty Images)





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