Promises, Promises
It’s about Jaylen and Jayson, to be clear, but we’ll return to them. Everybody else involved with this Celtics run made it possible. To follow the blueprint for what the Spurs and Sixers were looking for in essence, and then pull it off as efficiently as they did, has to be maddening to detractors. Nevertheless, Boston was the best team in the league all season. It turns out: that means all season.
After seven years of will-they, won’t-they together, Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum finally put it together, albeit with the help of Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis, as well as mainstays returned or otherwise in Al Horford, Peyton Pritchard, Sam Hauser and Derrick White. Brad Stevens ran his game on the rest of the NBA. Now, finally, the Boston Celtics are the NBA champions.
Thinking of other matchups and “if only”-type situations means absolutely nothing to you, me, Joe Mazzulla nor Joe Peanut Vendor. They pulled off what the Sixers, Rockets, Thunder and Spurs have been trying to pull off for a little while now[1]. However uncomfortably, given the Ime Udoka fallout and with the remains of the 2013 Paul Pierce-Kevin Garnett trade with the Brooklyn Nets in tow (by the way: remember Kim Kardashian’s ex-husband Kris Humphries, who was also in that trade?), they moved forward, contending and also strategically maneuvering for draft slots. They didn’t have to do much (the same summer, incidentally, that the Philadelphia 76ers began The Process by trading Jrue Holiday to New Orleans. Sorry: now two-time NBA champion Jrue Holiday).
A couple of unprotected Brooklyn Nets draft picks from that trade gave them Brown and Tatum, who immediately found themselves in the trenches against LeBron and the Cavaliers in their last stands in the East before James headed west. At first, it was Isaiah Thomas, a small guard with a ridiculous handle that could do nothing but run out of steam.
In 2017, at the expense of the Cavs, they picked up one Kyrie Irving. His tenure with the Celtics was promising, and then troubled, and then focused on him taking leave elsewhere.
Look: he seems like a style of contrarian persona I know very well, but I don’t know what Kyrie Irving’s philosophies or politics, or anything else, are. I don’t really care about where he stands on any of this, but that’s because I can afford[2] not to care. Can’t help but think about this guy, and myself, and our collective hand-waving at things that actually matter.
I say that to say this: Kyrie means something to a lot of people; that he was so out front with so many of the ways he was looking at life between vaccines and, ah, hmm, antisemitism, in the past couple of years is troubling at best, even more so in light of – bowl me right over! – reports about who knew about the attack in Gaza ahead of time[3]; to the same end, Irving’s avoidance of the media with non-basketball matters in recent months, and the national media’s returned willingness to embrace him once again, is not something most are going to want to broach[4] in a public manner. As ever, he’s a beacon of free speech to some people, to a specific point.
That he ended up on the Dallas Mavericks, next to perhaps the most maddening individual basketball player alive who also happens to be another genius in Luka Doncic, is apt. In acquiring Irving last February from the Brooklyn Nets, the Mavs pushed an offense-first gameplan that would only really come to fruition a year later – reiterated proof of concept that teams, and players, can gel, given time. Luka’s smashing successes as a postseason hero stood in some contrast to Kyrie’s no-shows, particularly in the Finals.
Who already knew that? The Boston Celtics, who, having offloaded their Kyrie burden years ago but remained angry about it in the public’s eye, would go on to win 64 games in this regular season, completely shelving anything that looked like competition on their stampede to the Finals.
After trading for Jrue Holiday (he of the 2013 swap that got him out of Philadelphia, and via an ill-begotten move for Damian Lillard courtesy of the Milwaukee Bucks), and acquiring Kristaps Porzingis after a robust season in the low profile sanctuary that is the Washington Wizards, Boston arrived to the playoffs prepared.
It’s a testament to the Celtics’ roster construction that an observer could say of any of the top six players, “That’s the linchpin. He drives them.” Brown, Tatum, White, Porzingis, Holiday and Horford collectively stepped up to fill the expected void that Marcus Smart’s heart supposedly left behind in the trade that brought Porzingis to Boston last summer. They knew something had to change, and a few things did; heart alone would not carry them through. Maybe losing enough games to the Miami Heat had them running for the hills, looking for different kinds of blood. Relatedly, Derrick White now has some teeth to fix.
After finally undoing that very Miami Heat team in the first round this year, the Celtics saw to the Cavs in short order, and the Pacers in even less[5], Boston once again arrived in the Finals, two years after their last appearance and with the kind of flashy, intentional baggage that suggests somebody who isn’t in the Royal Family but who knows the Royals, you know?
So it would be that the Celtics, years into the era of themselves that excising the previous one hastened, delivered. Long a pariah, positioned as someone who couldn’t do enough to pick everybody else up, Jaylen Brown stepped to the top block, deservedly winning Finals MVP. Al Horford, a fan favorite and leaguewide recipient of respect at 38, has a ring: this is a tribute to the mid-aughts Atlanta Hawks and the twice-over national champion Florida Gators of Billy Donovan, Joakim Noah and Corey Brewer[6]. Somewhere, Kyle Korver smiles.
Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum have been at this for seven years together. As fellow lottery picks of a cornerstone league team that had, just before they both arrived, been contenders, it was going to be up to them to do this. Brad Stevens took his time trying to deploy them optimally before moving to the front office; Ime Udoka took them to the 2022 Finals before firing up a workplace relationship that got him suspended for all of last season, and then shipped off to Houston; Joe Mazzulla, with a domestic battery charge from his time at West Virginia and a stern phone call from none other than WeVa legend Jerry West, would be the one to eventually put it all together.
Even in the advent of the Warriors – not exactly an attainable ideal to have the greatest shooter of all-time fall to you as a starting point – living with the idea of a pair of big wings as a template for a title contender remains new enough that it wouldn’t have been ingrained in these guys while they were figuring it out. That they figured it out anyway, along with some considerable help from the front office, is their core triumph, both together and individually: Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum maximized each other, all the way to the top of the mountain.
I’m happy for them[7]. It took long enough, and the whispers had grown loud enough, that shouts about one or the other not being a true Celtic or whatever that it had me sympathizing with the team that, as of Monday night, has the most championships of any NBA franchise. Fancy that.
While a re-dream of 2011 was on the table up until Monday, the Dallas Mavericks remain in prime Western territory, with most of their vitals under lock for at least two more years. They will be back, but so will the Minnesota Timberwolves, Oklahoma City Thunder and, sure enough, the Denver Nuggets, whom they did not have to face on the way to this series.
Mavs lottery pick Dereck Lively II was revelatory and proved to be a sparkplug into the playoffs, a common roadblock for rookies; Daniel Gafford is the kind of scrap heap pickup you pat yourself on the back for decades after the fact, an ex-pat of the same Wizards Thunderdome from which Boston pulled Porzingis. As of today, both of those players have been further in the playoffs than Bradley Beal. Apologies, Suns fans.
With the Nuggets’ victory tour in the rearview, and Joel Embiid’s vengeance run stifled at the point of attack, this season ended up being about the Boston Celtics – they were the best team from end to end, able to sink a shot or lock in on a key defensive possession when necessary (ironically, Jerry West would be proud). In years past, it wasn’t going to hold up. This year, it did. With eighteen on the board, the Boston Celtics are the NBA champions. Sláinte.
[1] Not including the Warriors here because – *whispers* – they kind of did pull off the two-timelines thing insofar as winning a title after your best players are after their prime goes. Steph is central to everything, and he might still be in his prime after I die, but otherwise? Yeah. They did it.
[2] Yup: it really does all come back to capitalism. You didn’t pay to read this. Did you see Le Mans this past weekend? Awesome; glad that your newfound Formula 1 fandom and/or the Secret Base crew got you there. The Netflix docs aren’t going to ask you how you feel when your landlord prices you out, is the thing, and they don’t care about how you feel about Thierry Boutsen. But yeah, Monte Carlo: highly recommend, if you’ve the means.
[3] Hey, by the way, while you’re in this marketplace: if you haven’t gotten hip to Kyrie’s relationship with his team’s governor, welcome to the show.
[4] Hearing your groan already: look at yourself as to why.
[5] You only play the teams you’re up against. Jimmy Butler was hurt; Injuries matter, but with apologies to those still against the idea of load management, injuries are also why you hedge against injuries. Get a deeper bench, protect your best players, play fewer games: in an NBA that will likely eventually reach 100 regular season games, because growth mindset is the only mindset until the sun engulfs us, get used to your favorite team’s best players not being available down the stretch. Source: Knicks fan. Maybe there should be fewer games? Ah, right, sorry: the TV deals need to be fulfilled.
[6] They can’t help themselves: in this era, it’s all a response to LeBron James.
[7] Mostly, they should be happy for themselves that they didn’t have to go through the Knicks. BANG!
Tuesdays With Horry 