BOSTON – The Boston Celtics Claim 18th NBA Title after defeating the Dallas Mavericks 106-88 in the 2024 NBA Finals, thanks to Jayson Tatum’s 31 points, 8 rebounds, and 11 assists and Finals MVP Jaylen Brown’s 21 points, 8 rebounds, and 6 assists. The Celtics won a record-setting 18th NBA title on the 16th anniversary of their 17th in this same building.
Celtics Claim 18th NBA Title & Surpass Lakers for Most NBA Championships
In doing so, the Celtics surpassed their longtime rivals, the Los Angeles Lakers, for the most NBA championships.
2024 WORLD CHAMPIONS 🏆 pic.twitter.com/31HoRn2LOd
— Boston Celtics (@celtics) June 18, 2024
Boston replied with a wire-to-wire victory Monday after playing its poorest game of the season in its first chance to win the series on Friday night. Big performances from Tatum and Brown enabled Boston to put the game away early, just as it did in 2008, when the Celtics destroyed the Lakers in Game 6 at TD Garden to capture their most recent championship.
That allowed the Celtics to take a 21-point lead into halftime, with a second Payton Pritchard half-court heave of the series sending Boston into the break with a comfortable advantage and throwing the sellout crowd at TD Garden into a frenzy.
The crowd had been ecstatic since before the game began, but especially when Kristaps Porzingis, who had missed Games 3 and 4 due to a torn medial retinaculum allowing dislocation of the posterior tibialis tendon in his left leg sustained in Game 2, returned midway through the first quarter. Porzingis finished with only five points in 16 minutes, but he provided Boston with vital minutes by replacing Al Horford on the bench.
Kyrie Irving, meanwhile, continued to struggle in Boston after acknowledging on Sunday that he had problems playing against his former team. After shooting a combined 13-for-37 in Games 1 and 2, including 0-for-8 from three, he finished with 15 points on 5-for-16 in Game 5.
Celtics Claim 18th NBA Title: Jaylen Brown Named MVP
Your 2024 Bill Russell Finals MVP ☘️🏆 pic.twitter.com/2h9XPqibip
— Boston Celtics (@celtics) June 18, 2024
Brown won MVP honors after averaging 20.8 points, 5.4 rebounds, and 5 assists across the five-game series, while also regularly protecting Mavericks sensation Luka Doncic.
Boston Celtics Claim 18th NBA Title: Team Effort Leads to Victory
“It was a whole team effort, and I share this with my brothers and my partner in crime, Jayson Tatum, who was with me the entire time, so we share this s— together,” Brown said after accepting the trophy named after Celtics star Bill Russell.
With the victory, the Celtics ended the playoffs 16-3, trailing only the 2016-17 Golden State Warriors (16-1) since the NBA expanded the playoffs to four best-of-7 rounds in 2003, in an emphatic repudiation of Boston’s recent playoff defeats. Prior to their Game 5 triumph, the Celtics had played more postseason games in an eight-season span without winning a title than any other club in NBA history.
That streak featured six trips to the Eastern Conference finals, including last year’s seven-game loss to the Miami Heat, who became only the fourth team in history to force a Game 7 after going behind 3-0. There was also a loss to the Warriors in the 2022 NBA Finals, despite winning two of the first three games and leading in the fourth quarter of Game 4, before the Warriors celebrated their fourth triumph of the Stephen Curry Era on Boston’s renowned parquet.
Celtics Claim 18th NBA Title: Milestones for Celtics’ Stars
As a result, the title checked off boxes for several of Boston’s best players. Tatum and Brown played 107 games together before winning their first championship, the most by a duo in NBA history. Al Horford, on the other hand, had appeared in 186 playoff games prior to his first title, the most by a single player in NBA history.
Tatum, meanwhile, had the fifth-highest career playoff point total at the time of his first title, after only the late Jerry West, LeBron James, Dirk Nowitzki, and Kevin Durant.
“All year long, we’ve been hearing about the Celtics of the past,” Brown said after Game 3. “For the last six to eight months, all we’ve heard is about our previous shortcomings.
“We are a new squad. We learned from those experiences. And at these instances, you can see what we learned. We stepped up to the plate and discovered a way to win.”
Celtics Claim 18th NBA Title: Journey to Championship Began 11 Years Ago
They discovered it at the end of a trip that began 11 years ago this month at Barclays Center, when the Brooklyn Nets made a blockbuster trade with Boston to acquire Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett in exchange for a slew of draft picks, two of which later became Brown and Tatum in the 2016 and 2017 NBA drafts.
Soon after the selection, Boston agreed to sign Brad Stevens away from Butler University to be the team’s head coach, a position he held for the next eight seasons before succeeding Danny Ainge, the man who hired Stevens, as president of basketball operations in 2021.
Boston was coming off a.500 season in 2020-21 and had been eliminated in the first round of the playoffs by the Nets after five games. Since then, Stevens has gradually rebuilt the roster around Brown and Tatum through trades, bringing back Horford that summer and Derrick White at the subsequent trade deadline, moves that helped Boston reach the 2022 Finals. Following the loss to the Heat last spring, Stevens rebuilt the team once more, dealing away fan favorite and former Defensive Player of the Year Marcus Smart in order to get Porzingis, then seizing the opportunity to acquire Jrue Holiday after the Milwaukee Bucks dealt him to the Portland Trail Blazers.
Holiday, who won a championship with Milwaukee in 2021, had several standout performances this playoffs, notably Game 2 of the Finals, when he scored 26 points on 11-of-14 shooting while the rest of the team went cold from three. Porzingis missed all but six of Boston’s postseason games due to injuries, but he scored 20 points off the bench in Game 1 of the Finals, helping the Celtics get out to a solid start against the Mavericks, before returning on Monday night to provide an emotional lift.
Celtics Claim 18th NBA Title: Joe Mazzulla’s Impact as Head Coach
Stevens also took the brave decision to promote Joe Mazzulla from the back of the bench to head coach after Ime Udoka was suspended for the season and ultimately sacked for violating team rules shortly before training camp. Mazzulla has gone on to post a 121-43 regular season record over the last two years, and on Monday, he became the youngest coach to win an NBA championship since Russell did so for Boston 55 years ago.
The Celtics had largely controlled the first three games of this series before the Mavericks annihilated Boston in Dallas on Friday, winning by 38 points in the third-largest blowout in NBA Finals history and the Celtics’ largest loss in any game since the 2017 Eastern Conference finals.
However, Boston answered with one of its most complete performances of the season in Game 5, setting a new standard for winning in NBA history.
Boston Celtics Claim 18th NBA Title -NBA Finals Prize Money
The Boston Celtics’ 2024 NBA Finals prize: Unveiling championship profits. How much will the Celtics get for winning the championship this year? Discover the cash rewards.
Teams in this year’s NBA playoffs will compete in a $33.7 million pool, with monetary awards determined by each team’s development. The cash award per club begins at around $452,708, nearly $30,000 for each player on a 15-player squad, and could rise to a stunning $12.1 million ($804,000 per player) for the NBA winners.
Teams advance and earn more with each round. Furthermore, the NBA uses regular-season rankings to distribute the playoff pool, rewarding the team with the best record with an additional cash bonus.
Consider the Boston Celtics, for example. The team finished the season as the first seed, with a warrior-like record of 64-18. This victory run will award each participant $804,000 if they win the title.
Here’s a basic breakdown of how the prize money works for clubs that advance to each playoff round, as reported by TalkSport:
- Getting into the first round: $402,000.
- Moving to the second round (Conference Semis): $478,000
- Proceeding to the Conference Finals: $791,000
- Pushing into the NBA Finals: $3.1 million
- Earning $4.7 million by winning the NBA championship.
It’s important to understand that teams are rewarded with prize money, which they subsequently distribute among players. In certain circumstances, the money may be distributed evenly, while in others, starters may receive more than bench players.
Teams that rank seventh or eighth in terms of regular-season pass-up bonuses, on the other hand. Players on these teams might win up to $698,000 if they make an exceptional run to the top. The 1995 Houston Rockets, despite being seeded sixth, went on to win the NBA Finals.
2024 NBA Playoffs Bonuses and Salary Highlights
The winners of this year’s NBA conference finals, such as the Boston Celtics and Dallas Mavericks, also collect their share of the tournament’s prize money. The NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) for this year allocated $27.5 million in post-season incentives. The bonus pool grows as the teams advance through each successful playoff round.
The increase in playoff bonuses ranges from 12% to 17% per round, with the exception of the championship round, where the increase is a staggering 79%, from $4.78 million to $8.55 million.
The average NBA player’s pay exceeds $10 million; among them, Stephen Curry outperforms all with $51.9 million. Interestingly, 42 NBA players have earned $30 million each this season, even before incentives are applied. Kristaps Porziis ($36 million), Jrue Holiday ($35 million), and Celtics’ Jayson Tatum ($32.6 million) were among the highest-paid players.
The Boston Celtics had a great season, defeating the Miami Heat 114-94 in the Conference First Round behind Jayson Tatum’s commendable performance of 23 points, 10 rebounds, and 10 assists.
Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, and Jrue Holiday worked well together to help the Celtics win. Tatum’s leadership focused on great scoring, rebounding, and assisting, while Brown and Holiday’s efforts fueled the team’s momentum.
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