The Celtics’ 2024 Championship Makes All Of The Past Trauma Worth It

BOSTON – Victory is much sweeter when it’s preceded by failure.

For the city of Boston, where championship lore defines its history and culture, maybe there was a little too much pain and suffering over the years.

Every time it felt like the Celtics were ready to take the throne, something stood in their way.

Historic talents. Dynastic opponents. Untimely glimpses of Heat Culture. Awful turnovers and youth mistakes.

If there was a problem, Boston would find it — forcing them into a miserable summer looking for new answers.

All of that is over.

The Celtics have cleared the last hurdle. After years of knocking on the door and eventually falling to more seasoned groups, Boston has surged through the NBA playoffs to claim their 18th championship banner. They closed out the 2024 season in front of their home crowd, with chants of “We want Boston!” echoing throughout the building — a clever mockery of the opposing fans in every round of this playoff run.

As people quickly found out, these weren’t the same Celtics. Not the ones that would succumb to the pressure.

There’s a clear separator between this year’s team and the past versions. From day one, this group checked all egos at the door. They disregarded any individual goals. Every habit, strategy, and lesson learned had one common theme: It was all rooted in sacrifice and how it could inch them closer to a championship parade.

Celtics President Brad Stevens said it perfectly after winning the title. Sitting down with the NBA TV crew and reflecting on last summer’s acquisitions, he summed up his team in one sentence.

“We’re loaded with guys that know who they are.”

The message is simple and straightforward. Boston achieved a full buy-in from everyone on the roster, with everyone mastering their roles and never stepping outside of their comfort zone.

“One of the things we think is a really important character trait is self-awareness,” Stevens said. “Knowing who you are, knowing what you do best, and being willing to do that for the good of the team.”

The Celtics roster construction makes a ton of sense once you understand Stevens’ thought process.

Jrue Holiday has played every role in his NBA career. He’s been the All-Star scoring point guard, the lockdown defensive guru, and a guy that had to fluctuate between roles in Milwaukee. After 14 years, he knew his strengths and weaknesses. That allowed him to enter Boston’s rotation, decrease his usage to a career-low mark, and win a second title.

Derrick White is the quintessential role player in the NBA. On some nights, he was the best shot-blocking guard of this generation. Other nights, he would sink multiple threes in clutch moments to kill the opponent’s hope.

Kristaps Porzingis was supposed to be a franchise player in New York once he was drafted. But he just won his first championship playing backup center minutes while battling an ankle injury. In Boston, he’s content with being a floor-spacing big that accentuates his teammates’ strengths.

Al Horford is never concerned about his scoring opportunities. He just wanted to play hard, move the ball, and prove he could defend at age 38.

However, it all begins with the two pillars — Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown.

There’s a strong parallel to last year’s Finals, when Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray guided the Nuggets to their first championship in franchise history. Those two are Denver’s bedrocks. They steer the ship the entire way. When one is having a rough stretch, the other will pick up the slack while encouraging his brother to keep going. If both are clicking, it’s a wrap. Try again next time.

With this championship performance, Tatum and Brown illustrated why they belong in that same conversation.

They have consistently had each other’s back since 2017. They are the culture-setters for Boston with personalities that have never clashed. It’s no coincidence we’ve seen both the Nuggets and Celtics’ long-term duos finish the job in the last 12 months.

Tatum and Brown have appeared in 107 playoff games together. That’s the most of any championship duo before reaching the pinnacle.

But it’s better late than never.

Some duos, such as John Stockton and Karl Malone (172 games), fail to get over the hump. Instead, they have to be viewed as “the team Jordan owned in the Finals.”

Boston wasn’t about to let that happen.

Now with 537 games logged, Tatum and Brown are the most successful duo in the league (by win percentage) outside of Golden State’s dynastic crew. They have won at a higher rate than Jokic and Murray in Denver:

Digging even deeper, Boston’s tandem recently eclipsed 25,000 total possessions. They know each other’s tendencies and embrace each other’s style. This year was, by far, the most successful they’ve been offensively:

It wasn’t until their 20th playoff series as a tandem that Tatum and Brown slammed the door and left zero doubt about their fit together. As they both will tell you, though, all of the painful defeats helped shape them into the players they are today.

Losing the 2022 Finals put a sour taste in their mouth. Leading 2-1 against the Warriors, only to show their age with careless turnovers down the stretch, the Celtics proved something in that series. It was evident they could win the title and had the proper formula, but simply needed a few offensive tweaks.

This time, Tatum knew what it took to close out the Mavericks and put a bow on the most impressive playoff run in Celtics history.

“It took being relentless,” Tatum said. “It took being on the other side of this and losing in the (2022) Finals. Literally the lowest point in a basketball career that you could be, to the following year (2023), thinking that was going to be the time, and coming up short again. I mean, people have said it before. But coming up short and having failures makes this moment that much better. Because you know what it feels like to lose. You know what it feels like to be on the other side of this and be in the locker room and hearing the other team celebrating, hearing them celebrate on your home floor.”

Tatum, specifically, had the weight lifted from his shoulders with this championship. His Game 5 performance wasn’t quite enough to give him Finals MVP honors. But it was a superstar showing up, breaking down the defense, and repeatedly making the right play.

He became the sixth player in NBA history to lead his team in playoff points, rebounds, and assists while also winning the title.

“These last seven years have been a roller coaster,” Tatum said. “Up and down. I had to listen to all the s–t that people said about me, and tonight, it was worth it. Oh my god.”

Both Tatum and Brown harped on the relationship and closeness they’ve built since being drafted to Boston. Despite the positional overlap at times, or their own struggles in isolation, they know 29 other team envy what the Celtics have: Two star wings that are consistently available and play beautifully off one another.

What resonates the most with Brown after winning with his co-star?

“Just our growth together,” Brown said. “We've been through a lot. We've been playing together for seven years now. We've been through a lot. The losses, the expectations. The media has said all different types of things: We can't play together, we are never going to win. We heard it all. But we just blocked it out and we just kept going. I trusted him. He trusted me. And we did it together.”

Jrue Holiday spent six years watching the Tatum and Brown connection from afar. Three of those seasons were in Milwaukee as the Celtics’ direct competition. He’s been on both sides of the journey — once a fierce enemy and now a friend that will share a bond with Tatum and Brown until the end of time.

So if there’s anybody that can properly articulate the brotherhood and cohesion this duo exemplifies, it’s Holiday. As one of the veteran voices, he’s been around locker rooms that are connected, disjointed, and everything in-between.

“They get scrutinized so much and get so much pressure put on them for not winning,” Holiday said. “But I feel like people finally see the relationship they have. From the beginning, they’ve always done it together. They’ve never compared against each other and they’ve always been joyful and happy for each other. It’s been great to experience on this side and get this win, man. Hopefully it’s a burden off their shoulders. But ... another burden is doing it again.”

By clinching the title at home, Boston put the finishing touches on a 16-3 playoff run. It was a two-month tour de force, outscoring teams by 8.6 points per 100 possessions. Going back to October, they were 46-6 in TD Garden and 34-15 on the road, completing one of the 10 greatest seasons in NBA history.

Sometimes in sports, you’re good enough to win, but just not ready.

The championship qualities are present, but the small details are overlooked and haunt you in the end.

It’s perfectly okay to admit the Celtics weren’t ready to lift the trophy before this year. There was a reason they let an opportunity slip away in 2023.

But these Celtics weren’t just prepared for the moment. They were miles ahead of the competition because of the disgust lingering from last year.

The rest of the NBA could be in trouble, too. With Holiday already extended and Horford wanting to play another season, this team isn’t going anywhere.

Plus, despite the countless wars they’ve been through as a duo, Tatum and Brown are just entering their prime. That’s a frightening reality.