The 2023-24 NBA Basketball season came to an end in TD Garden last night, as The Boston Celtics again stand alone among NBA champions after claiming their 18th championship. Boston earned its latest title on the 16th anniversary of hoisting its last Larry O’Brien Trophy in 2008. It marks the 13th championship won this century by one of the city’s Big 4 professional sports franchises.
Jayson Tatum put his hands behind his head, with TD Garden fans standing on their feet cheering around him, and took it all in. Walking to the bench, he wrapped both arms around Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla. The journey was complete. Tatum had 31 points, 11 assists and eight rebounds, and the Celtics topped the Dallas Mavericks 106-88 on Monday night to win the franchise’s 18th championship, breaking a tie with the Los Angeles Lakers for the most in league history.
“It means the world,” Tatum said on stage after the team received the trophy from NBA Commissioner Adam Silver. “It’s been a long time. And damn I’m grateful.”
Jaylen Brown added 21 points, eight rebounds and six assists, and was voted the NBA Finals MVP. “I share this with my brothers and my partner in crime Jayson Tatum,” Brown said after the 107th career playoff game he and Tatum have played together — the most for any duo before winning a title.
Luka Doncic finished with 28 points and 12 rebounds for Dallas, which failed to extend the series after avoiding a sweep with a 38-point win in Game 4. The Mavericks had been 3-0 in Game 5s this postseason, with Doncic scoring at least 31 points in each of them. He said the chest, right knee and left ankle injuries he played through during the finals weren’t an excuse for Dallas struggling throughout the series. “It doesn’t matter if I was hurt, how much was I hurt. I was out there,” he said. “I tried to play, but I didn’t do enough.”
Kyrie Irving finished with just 15 points on 5-of-16 shooting and has lost 13 of the last 14 meetings against the Celtics team he left in the summer of 2019 to join the Brooklyn Nets. Irving thinks better things are ahead for the Mavs. “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 said. NBA teams are now 0-157 in postseason series after falling into a 3-0 deficit.
Mavs coach Jason Kidd believes Doncic and his team will grow from this NBA Finals experience. “I think the first step is just to be in it. I think that’s a big thing,” he said. “Yes, we lost 4-1, but I thought the group fought against the 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.”
