Boston Celtics Mavericks
Boston Celtics— Jayson Tatum put his hands behind his head as TD Garden supporters were on their feet roaring him on, and took it all in.
Walking to the bench, he wrapped his arms around Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla.
The journey was completed.
Once again, the Boston Celtics are the sole NBA champions.
Tatum scored 31 points, 11 assists, and eight rebounds as the Celtics defeated the Dallas Mavericks 106-88 on Monday night to win their 18th championship, breaking a tie with the Los Angeles Lakers for the most in league history.
Boston won its latest championship on the 16th anniversary of winning the last Larry O’Brien Trophy in 2008. This is the 13th championship won this century by one of the city’s Big Four professional sports organizations.
“It means the world,” Tatum said on stage after receiving the trophy from NBA Commissioner Adam Silver. “It has been a long time. And heck, I am grateful.”
Jrue Holiday recorded 15 points and 11 rebounds. Kristaps Porzingis also gave an emotional lift, scoring five points in 17 minutes after returning from a two-game layoff due to a dislocated tendon in his left ankle.
They helped the Boston Celtics cap a postseason in which they went 16-3 and finished 80-21 overall. That.792 winning % is second in franchise history, trailing only the Boston Celtics’ 1985-86 championship squad, which ended 82-18.
Mazzulla, 35 years old and in his second season, became the youngest coach to lead a team to a championship since Bill Russell in 1969.
“You have very few chances in life to be great,” Mazzulla added.
For the 18th time in franchise history, the Celtics are NBA champions @GBHNews pic.twitter.com/SEBNPnaaOA
— Esteban Bustillos (@E_Bustillos4) June 18, 2024
Luka Doncic finished with 28 points and 12 rebounds for Dallas, which was unable to prolong the series despite escaping a sweep with a 38-point victory in Game 4. The Mavericks had gone 3-0 in Game 5s this postseason, with Doncic scoring at least 31 points in each. He stated that the chest, right knee, and left ankle injuries he sustained during the finals were no justification for Dallas’ struggles during the series.
“It doesn’t matter if or how much I was injured. “I was out there,” he explained. “I tried to play, but I didn’t do enough.”
Kyrie Irving concluded with 15 points on 5-of-16 shooting and has lost 13 of his previous 14 meetings with the Boston Celtics, whom he left in the summer of 2019 to join the Brooklyn Nets.
Irving believes the Mavs will fare better in the future.
“I see an opportunity for us to really build our future in a positive manner, where this is almost like a regular thing for us and we’re competing for championships,” he stated.
NBA teams are presently 0-157 in postseason series after falling behind 3-0.
Mavericks coach Jason Kidd feels Doncic and his club will benefit from their NBA Finals experience.
“I believe the first step is simply to participate in it. “I think that’s a big deal,” he stated. “Yes, we lost 4-1, but I thought the group fought against the Boston Celtics and just, unfortunately, we just couldn’t make shots when we had to, or we turned the ball over and they took full advantage of that.”
Boston never trailed, leading by as many as 26 points and capitalizing on the Garden crowd’s fervor.
Dallas got within 16-15 early on before the Boston Celtics finished the first quarter on a 12-3 run that included eight combined points from Tatum and Brown.
The Boston Celtics did it again in the second quarter, when the Mavericks cut a 15-point lead to nine. Boston completed the stanza on a 19-7 run, highlighted by a half-court buzzer beater by Payton Pritchard, his second of the series, to give Boston a 67-46 halftime lead.
In the final two minutes of the first and second quarters, the Boston Celtics outscored the Mavericks 22-4.
The Boston Celtics have never looked back.
2024 WORLD CHAMPIONS 🏆 pic.twitter.com/31HoRn2LOd
— Boston Celtics (@celtics) June 18, 2024