BOSTON — There was a championship celebrated on the parquet courtroom inside TD Backyard simply two years in the past.
Solely, it wasn’t the Boston Celtics doing the celebrating, however the Golden State Warriors — who defeated the C’s in six video games to settle the 2022 NBA Finals.
“I hate that I needed to undergo it. I want we’d have gained,” Celtics star Jayson Tatum stated Wednesday, on the eve of the 2024 finals.
Boston is again in enterprise, getting set to host the Dallas Mavericks at 8:30 p.m. ET Thursday in Recreation 1, two years after the Tatum-Jaylen Brown nucleus fell on its face within the duo’s first finals collectively.
The Celtics are usually not precisely the identical group they had been within the 2022 finals, however a lot of the necessary items are nonetheless intact, with Tatum and Brown main the best way. As Boston and the Mavericks addressed reporters throughout finals media day Wednesday at TD Backyard, the Celtics’ latest finals expertise — and the profit it might present them over the following three weeks — was a major matter of debate.
A lot of the Celtics who will take the ground Thursday have been within the finals earlier than, hoping that the ache they skilled by the hands of the Warriors was wanted in order that they’ll win this time.
“I’m a agency believer in all the things occurs for a motive,” stated Tatum, who averaged 26.9 factors this season and is scoring 26.0 factors per recreation within the playoffs. “There’s a lesson to be discovered in each state of affairs. I do really feel loads completely different this time, this go-around, two years later. I’m excited for the chance for us to get the job finished.”
The Celtics and Lakers are tied for essentially the most championships in NBA historical past (17), however Boston’s final finals triumph was in 2008, when Tatum was 10 years outdated. Brown, who has yet one more 12 months of NBA service than Tatum, has been part of six Celtics groups to achieve the convention finals in eight years. Solely twice has the duo gotten to the finals.
Derrick White performed critical minutes for Boston’s final finals group, as did Al Horford and Payton Pritchard. Joe Mazzulla was an assistant coach for Boston in 2022. Brad Stevens was in his first season as group govt, having been elevated from his put up as head coach.
After falling in Recreation 7 of the Japanese Convention finals final Could, Stevens added Jrue Vacation — a champion in 2021 with the Milwaukee Bucks — and former Dallas heart Kristaps Porziņģis over the offseason. Collectively, this group blew the remainder of the NBA away to the tune of 64 regular-season wins, essentially the most within the league.
Although they may disagree with this evaluation, the Celtics have largely gone untested within the playoffs, dealing with three opponents lacking their finest participant for some or all of every sequence. For a group pretty much as good as Boston, with as a lot pedigree and expertise because the Celtics have, the finals are a referendum on whether or not they “work,” and if Tatum and Brown can win the last word prize collectively.
“I feel it’s a good query. I feel it’s truthful to say that it does have an effect on you being embraced versus being scrutinized,” stated Brown, who was voted MVP for the Celtics’ Japanese Convention finals win over Indiana.
“You get to a degree the place it’s such as you get scrutinized sufficient for a big a part of your profession, it turns into regular,” Brown continued. “Then it simply rolls off you. For me, no less than, I can say — I don’t know if Jayson feels the identical manner — it’s form of been that (manner) my complete profession in a way.”
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GO DEEPER
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The Mavericks entered the postseason because the No. 5 seed within the West, and as a gaggle that is the farthest Dallas has been within the playoffs. Luka Dončić dragged the Mavs to the Western Convention finals in 2022, the place they had been simply dismissed by those self same Warriors who bested Boston within the finals.
Dallas coach Jason Kidd gained a championship as a participant with the Mavs in 2011 — the final time the franchise reached the championship spherical — and picked up a hoop as an assistant coach with the Lakers in 2020. Kyrie Irving, one in every of two Mavs stars, gained in 2016 with Cleveland.
However in each Kidd and Irving’s case, as gamers, they misplaced within the finals earlier than they might win one.
“Yeah, I feel you do must expertise it,” Kidd stated. “I feel that’s the nicer option to settle for dropping, is that it’s a must to undergo it. It’s a sleek option to settle for dropping. However you do must, once more, undergo defeat to know that dangerous style, how do you’re feeling, how does it make you’re feeling, to work in your recreation, to get higher.
“Jayson and Brown have gone by way of defeat,” Kidd continued. “We additionally misplaced to the Warriors, too, that 12 months. The Warriors are actually good. … That tandem (Tatum and Brown), they’re taking part in at a particularly excessive stage and we acquired our work minimize out.
“However they’ve been right here. A few of us for the Mavs have been right here, a few of us haven’t. We’re going to embrace that and discover a option to hopefully win a sequence.”
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(Picture: Maddie Meyer / Getty Photos)