How Tatum and Brown led Celtics over Mavericks to clinch 2024 NBA championship: Live updates from Game 5

Jayson Tatum's epiphany came against the Warriors in the 2022 NBA Finals, when Draymond Green kept trapping him in the gaps of the offense and taking him out of his game. So he went to his skills trainer, Drew Hanlen, and wanted to transform his game so no defense could stop him.

"I'm so consumed with basketball and trying to be great and win, I was just devastated," Tatum told The Athletic. "Nothing else mattered but getting better and getting back to that point."

At offseason workouts with Sixers star Joel Embiid, friends would ask them who was going to win MVP between the two of them.

"Jayson was like, 'I don’t care. I just want to get back and win the finals,'" Hanlen said. "He became obsessed with not only getting back, but finally getting over the hump. It was really like nothing else mattered."

He spent the summer learning how to play out of the post, beat different types of coverages, and operate as a playmaker rather than a scorer. He put his golf clubs in a closet and didn’t touch them throughout the summer.

By the time Green had to guard him this season, he was facing an entirely different player.

"It used to be you could be very directional with him and get him to go in certain directions and it would throw him off. You can’t anymore,” Green told The Athletic. "He's just continued to grow and with where he’s taking his knowledge of the game and how he sees the court, it's changed everything not only for him, but for his team."

Read my story on the evolution of Tatum and his "partner in crime" Jaylen Brown.

Boston Celtics center Kristaps Porziņģis returned to action for the team’s title-clinching win Monday and played through a left ankle injury, but the big man told ESPN he will need offseason surgery to correct the issue.

Porziņģis said the recovery process will take a "few months," ESPN reported early Tuesday after the Celtics defeated the Dallas Mavericks in Game 5 of the NBA Finals for Boston’s record 18th NBA championship.

"I think something could have happened, for sure, especially compensating now on the other leg. … There was definitely some added risk, but I didn't care," Porziņģis told ESPN. "I was like, 'I want to give everything I can and then fix it after if I need to.'"

BOSTON — At shootaround before Game 3 of the second round, Jaylen Brown shrugged off a question about the Celtics' playoff struggles at home. They had dropped Game 2 at TD Garden for the second straight series, but Brown would not accept that they had a problem. In the past, sure, Boston had trouble protecting the parquet. Brown said the Celtics were focused on changing that narrative.

The answer continued a pattern for him. When asked about previous seasons, he often chose to dismiss the connection to this version of the team. He didn't fully explain why until the Celtics, after giving up almost all of a 21-point fourth-quarter lead in Game 3 of the NBA Finals to the Dallas Mavericks, regrouped to salvage a 106-99 win.

"All year long, we've been hearing about the Celtics of the past," Brown said. "For the last six to eight months, that's all we've been hearing is all the different shortcomings we've had in the past. This is a new team, you know what I mean. We've learned from those experiences. And in these moments, you can see that we learned from it."

As Brown said, they weren't the same team. Years of heartache had molded them. A series of sharp roster moves had fortified them. Joe Mazzulla, with more time and experience as a young coach, had reshaped them.

"All of our adversity has made us stronger, made us tougher," Brown said Tuesday after closing out the NBA Finals with a 106-88 win. "All season you could see it. We started from the jump. We made all the sacrifices. We played both ends of the ball at a high level. We didn't skip any steps. And this was the result."

Read the rest of my story with Jared Weiss here.

BOSTON — Luka Dončić said his final words about this Dallas Mavericks season, now concluded, before the Boston Celtics had even lifted their championship trophy to the sky.

Dončić trudged to the interview room five minutes after the final buzzer of Game 5 of the NBA Finals, a 106-88 defeat on Monday that, at last, sent him into the offseason. It was a familiar sight: blood showing from his knee, exhaustion evident from his gait, brevity preferred within every answer he gave. Celebratory yells from his opponent sometimes snuck in from the hallways he had taken to this room from the TD Garden court, where the championship platform was still being constructed. He ignored them. They weren't for him.

"Nothing," he said, asked to put what he was feeling into words. "Sad we lost."

It was the longest year of Dončić’s career, one which held the highest and lowest moments of his career to date. He had, for the first time, reached the finals. He achieved far more than that: a scoring title, a 73-point game, his first top-three finish for Most Valuable Player. He became a father, a leader, a brother to his superstar teammate. He also became a lightning rod for those who saw his flaws, visible on the highest stage that was now being constructed to prop up another team.

"I'm proud of every guy that stepped on the floor, all the coaches, all the people behind," Dončić said. "We didn't win (the) finals, but we did have a hell of a season."

Now, Dončić has choices to make.

Read the rest of my story here.

Here are a few numbers to illustrate the Celtics' prowess:

• They went 80-21 throughout their title run, becoming the 12th team to notch 80 wins and win a ring (including the playoffs).
• Boston had the fifth-greatest margin of victory in regular-season history (plus-930). Its dominant postseason raised that ranking to fourth all time when combining the playoffs (plus-1,083).
• The Celtics' 16-3 run in the playoffs marks the ninth-best winning percentage (84.2) for a title run in NBA history.

When factoring in the regular season, Boston’s campaign was more dominant than Denver's title march last year. It’s not quite on the level of the 2017-18 Warriors or the 72-win Chicago Bulls in 1996, but this run from October through June was as strong as any other since the 1976 ABA-NBA merger. And while the 2024 Celtics won't get the same fame and glory as the 1986 team or the 2008 champions, their start-to-finish dominance makes such a comparison fairer than people will assume.

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The Boston Celtics won the NBA title last night, and on the surface, that’s a rather boring result. The team that entered this season as the title favorite then won the most games and the rings. So … expected.

And yet these lasting effects are anything but dull:

No one can ever again say the pairing of Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown doesn’t work. Even after this team made the NBA Finals two years ago, the murmurs were palpable. Now Brown, always the odd man out in those conversations, is a Finals MVP. Consider the discussion closed. In this age of player movement, the Celtics stuck with homegrown talents Tatum and Brown, two guys they drafted at No. 3 in consecutive seasons (2016 and 2017), and it worked.

Has any coach been more successful under duress than Joe Mazzulla? It’s easy to forget that Mazzulla took over as interim head coach just days before the 2022-23 season began (after the team suspended Ime Udoka, who'd led the Celtics to that 2022 finals berth). In two seasons, Mazzulla has 121 regular-season wins. In his first season after removing the interim tag, he won a title. Not bad.

You can argue these Celtics never faced a worthy foe in the playoffs, but they are now one of the best teams in NBA history. Only 13 other teams have won 80 combined games in a season, and not all of those teams finished with titles (sorry, Golden State). Boston, which now holds the most championships in NBA history (18), has hit 80 wins just two other times. The 2023-24 team walloped everyone in its path. That earns banners and lore. Nothing else really matters.

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BOSTON — They all know what they signed up for when they get here.

They are everywhere, every place you look, in every highlight reel, every throwback jersey, always in the air in this town. Their names, still, roll off the tongue. Russell, Cousy, Sam and K.C. Jones. Heinsohn, Havlicek, White and Cowens. Bird, McHale, Parish, and DJ; KG, Pierce and Allen.

And Red Auerbach. Always, Red Auerbach.

You can have all the individual accolades you can stuff into your carry-on bag.

But until you hang a banner here, you ain't jack.

"The only way you can get rid of all the ghosts," said the Celtics’ great play-by-play man, Sean Grande, toward the end of Boston’s 106-88 NBA Finals clincher Monday over the Dallas Mavericks, "is to become one of them."

So, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown have ascended. They are now sewn, comfortably, into the fabric of the franchise that, again, has won more NBA championships than anyone else.

BOSTON — The derogatory chants were back, directed squarely at Kyrie Irving. So were his missed shots.

Irving's chance at redemption against his former team ended as it began nearly two weeks ago — with the Boston Celtics jumping all over his Dallas Mavericks, New Englanders jumping all over him and his shots bouncing off all parts of the rim.

Irving's three games at TD Garden were brutal: He shot 18-of-52 (.346) overall and 3-of-17 from 3-point land.

The series-long introspection Irving offered about his tumultuous two years and abrupt departure from Boston was absent from his postgame remarks. He spoke more broadly about the Mavericks, a No. 5 seed who changed themselves at the trade deadline with key trades, reaching the finals and then falling short.

When Irving checked out of the game for the final time — with 2:37 remaining and the result long decided — Irving offered congratulatory hugs to his former teammates and Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla. He said it was a "sign of respect" from Irving toward the Celtics for overcoming their previous shortcomings, including a 2022 finals loss and losing in the conference finals last season.

"Failing at this stage definitely sucks," Irving said. "It's a bitter feeling because you want to keep playing and you feel like your best game is coming up next and the shots that you shoot in the next game are coming up. And now we got to wait two and a half months, three and a half months so the new champion gets a chance."

Read more here.

The Boston Celtics won the 2024 NBA title and are early favorites to repeat next year. They have +310 odds to win the 2025 championship, per BetMGM.

The odds went up Monday night after the Celtics beat the Dallas Mavericks 106-88 at TD Garden. The Mavericks opened third in the 2025 title odds at +950 to win next year’s title.

Wedged between this year’s NBA Finals teams in the opening title odds are the Denver Nuggets, with +750 odds to repeat their 2023 win in 2025.

Last year, the Nuggets opened as favorites to repeat at +500 odds. Their downfall in the conference semifinals at the hands of the Minnesota Timberwolves was one of the major storylines of this year’s postseason.

BOSTON — Long gone are the days when the Boston Celtics could strut through the regular season and then keep on keepin' on right through the playoffs, after which the great Red Auerbach would kick back and fire up his patented Hoyo de Monterrey victory cigar. (And, oh my, how every fan in every other NBA port of call hated that.)

In the modern NBA, dynasties just don't happen. Your team may well be blessed with a couple of great players, and also two or three pretty good ones, and yet it might take a year or two or three before everything culminates, finally, with a championship. If it happens at all.

The 2023-24 Boston Celtics, newly crowned champions of the NBA, are a case in point. Their 106-88 victory over the Dallas Mavericks in Game 5 of the NBA Finals Monday night at TD Garden makes it 18 championships for this iconic NBA franchise, and, yes that means Jayson Tatum sits at the table with Paul Pierce. It means Jaylen Brown rides with Larry Bird. It means Kristaps Porziņģis and Bob Cousy can look up to the rafters, together, and share championship moments.

But no team in Celtics history had to work to make it happen the way these guys did.

Read the rest of my column here.

Magic Johnson checks in and tells X how he really feels.

What an incredible picture of Jayson Tatum and his son, Deuce. Shoutout to Nathaniel S. Butler, the photographer.

Don't forget: The TD Garden arena workers are celebrating too.

Just heard one guy walk through the tunnel toward the court and ask a security guard, "They said we can take selfies up here?"

"Yeah." the security guard replied.

"Cool!" the first worker yelled.

Kristaps Porziņģis credited adrenaline with helping him get on the court tonight after he was injured in Game 2 and was available but didn't play in Game 4.

"I would take a walk in Dallas, and my leg would swell up," he said.

Porziņģis played 16 minutes in Game 5, scoring five points and grabbing one rebound.