Boston Celtics vs. Dallas Mavericks 2024 NBA Finals

I heard Al say out of his own mouth that he's coming back next year. As for all the haters, as Taylor Swift sings,

'Cause the players gonna play, play, play, play, play
And the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate
Baby, I'm just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake, shake
I shake it off, I shake it off

This Celtics team has been super special and deserve all the fan love we can give them.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/article/2024/jun/18/boston-celtics-nba-championship-win-nba-finals-basketball

Interesting review from across the pond by Aaron Timms of The Guardian.

His closing is our collective hope: But the peaks of Curry, Durant, and even LeBron have passed; the NBA’s old generation is finally, seemingly, drifting into history, its work done, the legends assured. The new generation is here, and the technocrats of Boston look set to master its performance model for years to come.

His earlier in the article comment on his lack of personal excitement in the style of play was total enjoyment for me however:
And yet! Despite their domination, despite their champion worthiness, these Celtics still seem a little bloodless. Technical, precise, and brutally effective, their basketball nevertheless fails to raise a pulse (in this neutral spectator at least).

What a great year to watch Celtics. Bravo.

I'll go with brutally effective and bloodless all season long,

He has a problem enjoying a business-like approach on both ends of the floor that our team provided?

Technical, precise, and brutally effective, their basketball nevertheless fails to raise a pulse . . .

It got my pulse going, that's for sure.

I guess he would rather see Embiid, Giannis, LeBron or the like just iso drive to the hoop and treat the defense like bowling pins?  And the resulting trips to the frito line?  Maybe not, but he didn't say what he would have preferred, did he?

The Warriors were also "Technical, precise, and brutally effective", but they provided more drama, like Steph's Night-Night and Draymond's constant assaults on other players, etc.?  Is that what he wants?  Drama?  Braggadocio?

I haven't had a chance to talk to one of my son-in-laws (the Knicks fan) about his opinion from outside of Celtics Nation.  Not as a "neutral spectator", because there's no such thing.

Joe Mazzulla is elevated to one of the top coaches in the NBA.

In game 5, he controlled the game from start to finish.  His timeouts were timely.  Whenever the flow of the game was not quite up to par, he called a timeout.  This was an ultimate wire to wire win with Boston never playing from behind.  

Pretty impressive to take his team to the top in only his second year at the helm and at the ripe old age of only 35.

The road to the title included matchups against 2 coaches that have won an NBA title (Erik Spoelstra and Rick Carlisle)

Celtics Notebook: Porzingis played through injury in Game 5


By ZACK COX
PUBLISHED:  June 19, 2024 at 2:03 p.m.



According to Joe Mazzulla, the Celtics’ medical staff did not want Kristaps Porzingis to play in Game 5 of the NBA Finals. He was dealing with a rare and serious leg injury, after all, one we now know will require offseason surgery to repair.

Porzingis didn’t care.

Mazzulla revealed in an interview on the “Pardon My Take” podcast that the Celtics big man overruled Boston’s medical team in order to take the court in Monday night’s championship-clinching win over the Mavericks.

“It was like, we don’t know how long this series is going to go on for, let’s try to save him from himself because he was trying to play,” said Mazzulla, who did not use Porzingis in Game 3 or 4 in Dallas. “So let’s see if we can get through a game or two.

“And then when it was Game 5 at home, it was like, ‘Hey, this might be it. I’ve got to be out there.’ He was like,

‘I’m playing.’ He overrode the medical team and was just like, ‘I’m playing.’ Credit to him.”

Porzingis, who said earlier in the Finals that he’d be willing to “die out there” to be on the floor with his teammates, played 16 minutes in Game 5, tallying five points and one rebound. He was not as impactful as he was before his latest injury — Dallas had few answers for the 7-foot-2 difference-maker in Games 1 and 2 — but Mazzulla said his contributions were vital nonetheless.

The Celtics head coach also said Porzingis would have been available in certain situations in Game 4, including if Boston had a key jump ball in its own end or was on the verge of winning. Neither of those came to pass, as a Mavs blowout extended the series and allowed the C’s to clinch on their home floor.

“If we were winning, I would have put him in the game for a minute or two, just because he sacrificed his whole career to get to this point, and to not be a part of it would have just devastated him,” Mazzulla said of Porzingis, who had never advanced beyond the first round of the playoffs before his trade to Boston last summer. “He had a serious, serious injury and he worked his ass off to get back. And what he brought for us in Game 5 was unbelievable and really led to winning.”

Porzingis also dealt with a calf injury during the playoffs that sidelined him for 10 games. His exact recovery timeline is unclear, but he reportedly is expected to miss several months.

“I gave everything I could,” Porzingis said after Game 5. “And man, it feels great to be a champion.”


Mazzulla thankful for knee tear

Porzingis’ coach was dealing with his own significant injury throughout the Celtics’ playoff run, with Mazzulla sharing after Game 5 that he tore his meniscus following a late-season loss to Atlanta.

Mazzulla offered a deeper explanation of how that happened during his “PMT” appearance, saying his frustration over the defeat caused him to overexert himself during a mixed martial arts training session.

But the notoriously intense coach — who also needs surgery this offseason — said he actually enjoyed the grueling rehab that followed because it heightened his focus.

“Well, listen, that’s what happens when you lose games in the regular season,” Mazzulla said. “You’re just not allowed to lose. So after we lost to Atlanta at home, I just went out on the mats, punished myself and just pounded my body until it couldn’t take any more, and ended up just tearing my knee. It ended up being a great experience for me. I had to do, like, six hours of treatment in order to coach the next game without too much of a limp because I could not walk.

“But I’ll tell you what, it was one of the best things that happened to me for the rest of the season because it put me in this fight or flight mentality to where I could just not relax. Like, I had to constantly train to keep it pain-free, had to constantly get physical therapy. My physical therapist has been great. And it was just awesome. I’ve been thinking about maybe getting hurt every All-Star break.”

Boston never lost to the Hawks at home this season, so Mazzulla likely was referring to one of its back-to-back L’s in Atlanta in late March. The Celtics went 23-5 after those stumbles, including their 16-3 playoff run.
Mazzulla said coaching through pain “just brought a different level of focus that I had to have.”

“Because it’s a bucket handle tear and it would lock and click from time to time, so I had to walk slower,” he said. “I couldn’t move certain ways. So it really forced me to focus more. So I’m actually really grateful that it happened. I miss the mats, though.”


Off the rim

Mazzulla said he and Jayson Tatum watched the Batman-Joker interrogation scene from “The Dark Knight” during a discussion about how the Celtics would handle pressure and expectations from the media. “Batman’s like, ‘Why do you want to kill me,’” Mazzulla said. “And the Joker starts laughing at him. He’s like, ‘I don’t want to kill you. I need you. You complete me.’ It was the coolest moment of, like, good and evil has to coexist. Differences have to coexist in order to bring the best out of each other.” … The Celtics coach channeled his inner Bill Belichick when he noted, multiple times, that all other teams are now ahead of Boston in their preparation for next season. “A week from now,” Mazzulla said, “we’ll be 0-0.”


Bob


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Jaylen Brown a worthy heir to Bill Russell’s legacy First to hold trophy named after Celtics icon


By BILL SPEROS | bsperos1@gmail.com

PUBLISHED:  June 19, 2024 at 4:18 a.m.



Bill Russell saw this coming.

His affinity for the Celtics never waned.

His eyes were affixed on one Celtics player in particular the past few years.

“Jaylen Brown has such a special place in my heart because of the whole spirit of how he conducts himself on the court, off the court, and what he does in the community. It just reminds me so much of Bill. I just think he’s just really underrated,” Russell’s widow, Jeannine, told me last week in her first extensive public interview.

Jaylen Brown earned his first NBA championship Monday. Brown is the sixth Celtic to be Finals MVP, but the first to hold the trophy named for Russell.

Just another stanza from the poetry stitched into Banner 18.

Russell saw something in Brown, not only as a player but as the type of player who would be transformative on and off the court.

“All the guys on the team, and I think Bill would think, too, they’re all in the right place to win because the mind frame of being a team and putting the team first, I think is what’s going to really put them over the top to win the championship,” Russell said.

Brown and his “partner in crime” Jayson Tatum silenced everything and everyone, save for a raucous, confetti-covered TD Garden crowd. And a few thousand of their closest friends who turned Causeway Street into VJ Day Times Square

“What they gon’ say now?” Tatum asked no one and everyone in particular.

Nothing, Jayson.

Except: “Congratulations.”

The world belongs to you. And Deuce. Be happy. But stay hungry. The Nike ad was sweet. It’s right up there with Brady’s “Roger That” spot after Super Bowl 51.

Brown and Tatum are the new face of Boston sports.

If not Boston.

Brady’s Patriots Hall of Fame ceremony came on the same night the Celtics won Game 3, all but clinching Banner 18. Game 4 has been erased from our hard drive.

It’s all so reminiscent of JFK’s inauguration. 1,961 days passed between Super Bowl 53, Boston’s last title, and Monday’s Banner 18 bacchanalia. The coronation of the Jays “symbolizing an end as well as a beginning — signifying renewal as well as change.”

Indeed, “the torch has been passed to a new generation” of champions.

The Celtics championship DNA was developed over the course of seven decades, not just the seven seasons the Jays have shared in Celtic green.

Danny Ainge poured the foundation. Red drafted Ainge 43 years ago and bought out his MLB contract. Wyc is the owner you want for the Patriots, Red Sox and Bruins. Brad “Theo” Stevens made all the right moves. Joe Mazzulla is 35. Coach for life if he wants it.

Russell passed away on July 31, 2022. A month after the Celtics’ painful collapse in the NBA Finals. That loss, and the Game 7 exit against Miami last year, turned out to be just acts one and two in the drama that ended with Boston’s 106-88 Game 5 victory Monday night.

Our pal “Sign Kid” is now a 22-year-old UMass-Lowell graduate. Jason McKeon of Haverhill was born just prior to Super Bowl 26. Friday, he’ll be up to 13 parades in 22 years.

The Celtics won 80 of 101 games. They smoked the opposition. The Celtics were the test. Not those teams whose best players could not stand the rigor of the season. Ask Larry Bird’s back, or Bill Walton’s feet, about that.

They were so deep, so solid, they’ll be arguing about who should have been Finals MVP for weeks.

The Celtics turned Kyrie Irving into a cartoon villain.

He’s now a punch line. Just like A-Rod.

Whoever thought 16-3 would sound so much sweeter than 18-1? Life is so much about timing.
Jeannine Russell moved cautiously into the public space during these Finals. Just one of many gifts delivered by this team’s historic 2024 success.

She joined the family of the late Bill Walton for Game 1 as the Celtics honored their former champion.

Russell returned to Boston for Game 5. She accompanied the Celtics in their post-game celebration. She brought flowers to her husband’s statue in Boston before tipoff. Someday, there will be a Bill Russell bridge, tunnel, street, or airport. For now, we’ll just settle with his legacy and inspiration.

She posed with Brown and held the trophy first named for husband in 2009 by then NBA Commissioner David Stern.

“Bill would be so very proud of all of you. Way to stick with it & bring Banner #18. Bill's advice would be to enjoy every second you earned it. Thanks Celtics Fans,” she posted.

Brown winning the Bill Russell Trophy “would really mean the world to him,” Jeannine Russell said last week. “It meant so much to him when David had given that honor to him. He took great pride in the fact of his finals record and Game 7s. I think that he would just really be ecstatic that it would go to a fellow Celtic.”

No doubt he is.

“Bill Russell would be so happy,” added NBA commissioner Adam Silver in presenting Brown MVP honors.

And like Russell, Brown is the Alpha of his pack. More importantly, he made sure his teammates were at their best. Throughout this series, Brown was the one to keep the Celtics fixated on what mattered most.

“I can’t even put it into words Bill Russell and what he’s meant to me in my Boston journey,” Brown said postgame. “His spirit and everything he stood for.”

On the court, Russell stood first for winning championships.

And now, so does Brown.


Bob


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