The Boston Celtics defeated the Dallas Mavericks 106-88 on Monday night a record 18th NBA titleone more than their old rivals, the Los Angeles Lakers.
“You have very few opportunities in life to be great… you have to take the bull by the horns and you have to own it, and our guys had it in their hands,” the 35-year-old Celtics coach said. Joe Mazzulla, during the awards ceremony.
What many expected to be a hard-fought series ended in a relative slump, which the Celtics capped off with a win on their home court – they led by 21 points at halftime and never trailed all evening. The series, which the Celtics won 4-1, was never in serious doubt, even when the Mavericks won Game 4 in a 38-point blowout last Friday. The same could be said about the Celtics’ entire playoff campaign, in which they lost just three games.
“We’ve been reacting all year and this was no different,” Celtics forward Jayson Tatum said after the game, when asked how the Game 4 blowout affected Monday night’s performance. “We owed it to our fans, it was a long journey. It has been a long journey.”
Tatum, who was named to the All-NBA first team for the third time this season, was fantastic Monday night, with 31 points, 11 assists and eight rebounds. The victory came exactly 16 years after the Celtics last won the NBA title in 2008.
Jaylen Brown, who had 21 points that night, was named MVP of the finals.
“It was a team effort and I’m going to share this with my brothers and my partner in crime Jayson Tatum. He was with me the whole time,” Brown said before hugging Tatum.
The Mavericks never played on Monday night. Luka Dončić finished with 28 points and 12 rebounds, but was sloppy defensively, committing seven turnovers and missing his first six three-point attempts as Dallas failed to make an early impact on the game.
“I’m proud of every man who stepped on the floor, all the coaches, all the people behind it [the scenes],” said Dončić, who became only the eleventh player to score more than 3,000 points in a season. “Obviously we didn’t win the final, but we did have a great season and I’m proud of every one of them.”
Dallas’ other star, Kyrie Irving, had another miserable night against his former team, finishing with just 15 points on 5-for-16 shooting. He has now lost thirteen of his last fourteen games against the Celtics, who he left in dire circumstances in 2019.
“We finally met a team that beat us fair and square,” said Irving, who has been noticeably calmer this season than in years past. “We couldn’t respond to a lot of their runs. When I was shaking [Celtics players’ hands at the end of the game] that was a sign of respect for their journey, they have had an incredible five years.”
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Mavericks coach Jason Kidd, who won the title with Dallas as a player, was positive despite his team’s loss.
“I thought the group did a great job,” he said of his team’s season. “Yes, we lost [the finals] 4-1, but they were fighting the Celtics and unfortunately we couldn’t make the shots we needed to make, or we turned the ball over and they took full advantage [but] There are a lot of positives in this run.”
The championship victory ends a series of near misses for the Celtics. In addition to their loss in the NBA Finals two years ago, they had also lost in the conference finals in four of the past eight seasons.
“What are they going to say now?” Tatum said when asked about the critics who said this team couldn’t deliver on its promise. “What are they going to say now?”
On Monday, and for most of a season in which they won 80 of their 101 games, the Celtics had the final say.