13 Takeaways from the NBA Finals
NBA Substack on a Celtics championship years in the making
We asked 13 leading NBA voices on Substack:
Your takeaways from the NBA Finals?
Check out their answers and subscribe!
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Props to Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown. It must feel so ridiculously good for them to snap through that tape after so many skeptics questioned if they ever would.ย
Brad Stevens was my NBA Finals MVP as the guy who has been even better as an executive than he was as a coach by trading for Al Horford, Derrick White, Kristaps Porziลฤฃis and Jrue Holiday โ in that order โ to furnish The Two Jays with so much high-level help.
The playoffs overall were often a downer with all the injuries that derailed so many teams, but these Celtics were pure wire-to-wire excellence all season. They were and are the Team of the Season.
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My primary takeaway from the 2024 NBA Finals is that building a team loaded with high-level two-way players is a phenomenal recipe for success. By focusing on well-rounded players all over the rotation, you're not as concerned with covering weaknesses with certain personnel or trying to find the perfect bowl of porridge to fit your style.
Of course, not every team has a superstar at the center like Jayson Tatum, who has the talent and dedication to be extremely good at both ends of the court and a willingness to sacrifice individual status for the greater good of the team.
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The Celtics were better. They were the best team of the season โ literally so: They were favorites from wire to wire in my forecastย model.
Because of their history of near-misses, it seemed like there was no amount of proof Boston could offer to get anybody except the numbers (and nerds like me) to believe they'd win. Plenty of people managed to talk themselves into taking Dallas in this very series. But sometimes the obvious best team wins. That was these Celtics, and it was finally their year.
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The champions just proved yet again that it's a 3-point league. The Boston Celtics took more 3-pointers than any champion in NBA history โ 47.1 percent of their shots came from beyond the arc in the regular season. They're the only team to lead the league in the category and eventually be the last team standing. Kristaps Porziลฤฃis, the 7-foot-2 unicorn that the team acquired in the offseason, allowed Joe Mazzulla to play a five-out system without skipping a beat.
The Celtics defended at a high level, but the five-out system just became Larry O'Brien certified.
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In the interest of sayingย something nice versus not saying anything at all (a tough sell in our business), I'll say that my biggest takeaway from these Finals is that excellence travels. Jrue Holiday is the first player in NBA historyย to win a title in his first season with two separate franchises, and I can understand why. He had the best performance of the series prior to Jayson Tatum's line last night in Game 5, he can shoot, get boards, set up his teammates, and the way he moves. This was a long postseason, apparent on the calendar as well as these guysโ legs, and Holiday never looked gassed. I know offense wins games and defence wins titles, but energy is infectious, it gets into everything.
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Patience is a virtue โ that sometimes leads to a ring.
How many times have we read or listened to somebody saying that the Boston Celtics should trade either Tatum or Brown? Or that they weren't good enough to lead a team to a title? Danny Ainge had a vision with both of them, and Brad Stevens had the perseverance to continue building around those two, letting them grow side by side, but also looking for the right pieces that complemented them.
This ring has been almost eight years in the making. With patience, the talent of both Tatum and Brown finally delivered it.
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Winning takes time. Always. The Celtics winning the Finals proves, once again, that patience wins championships over anything else. Three of the last four NBA champions โ Milwaukee, Denver, and now Boston โ all had to lose in the playoffs year after year before they broke through, and breaking through one time makes it all worth it.
Many NBA teams are in a perpetual state of trying to build the best team as quickly as possible. And though that may result in some quick wins and perhaps a few playoff moments, the highest level of winning is achieved through continuity and repetition.
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Turns out, you can win a championship if you donโt have the best player in the series, as long as you have the second, third, fourth, and fifth-best.
Iโve never liked the โCan X be the number-one option on a championship team?โ discussion, and this year proves that the question is no longer relevant. Plenty of guys can drive the bus when they have teammates as talented as Holiday, White, Porziลฤฃis, Horford, etc., riding shotgun and playing cards in the back.
The new NBA reality: Teams are only as good as their weakest links. This finding, combined with the new CBA restrictions, will have fascinating roster-building ramifications, and I canโt wait to see how strategies change moving forward.
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I was living in Atlanta when Al Horford's Atlanta Hawks teams were running into the Cavs buzzsaw year after year. (So first, huge congrats to Horford, who Jayson Tatum called "his favorite teammate of all time" in the postgame. I believe him.) Those Hawks were one of those teams who'll go down as a good, competitive team that couldn't put it together.
There was a nontrivial chance that these Celtics, though far more consistently successful and star-powered than those Hawks teams, would be remembered similarly. That's no longer the case. The margins for lasting memory are so, so tight, and the Celtics may not be done writing their story quite yet either.
I was glad to see Tatum author a great closeout game, if for no other reason than hopefully quieting the neverending Whither the Js? discourse. I assume we won't be that lucky, but Boston will deal. They've got their ring. Now, as never before, all that noise is finally just noise.
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Regardless of how much of a perceived dud Game 5 was, I had my eye on one player once the green and white confetti made its way down: Al Horford.
After 17 years of being in the NBA, one of the league's most consistently productive players finally got a chip. Even better, his win is a continuation of his father Tito's living legacy, a result of the sacrifices made by Alโs NBA and internationally-vetted dad. Horford now becomes the first Dominican-born player to win a chip, bringing the five-time All-Starโs career to its peak, 17 years later.
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I think the Celtics might now look into dealing Porziลฤฃis. Returning from a pair of significant injuries, he looked like the worst player on the court for stretches in Game 5, with the Mavs hunting him due to his slow perimeter footspeed. Then there's the issue of availability, a problem for most of his career โ he missed the bulk of this yearโs playoffs, with the Celtics going 10-2 in his absence.
All while creating future financial difficulty for the Celtics, given the punitive luxury tax structure and the $60 million heโs owed over the next two seasons.
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Congratulations to the Boston Celtics. Now, because we canโt allow anyone to have sustained joy in our hyperbolic chamber of sports dialogue, the conversation immediately shifts to whether the Celtics can repeat.
Most everybody will likely have Boston as the favorites next season โ I have Denver โ but repeating has proven elusive for everyone not named Golden State over the last 14 years. Yet, Brad Stevens conducted a general manager master class this past year, and with still-young stars at the top, and depth throughout the roster, Boston feels as primed as any recent team to get back to the promised land next season โฆ but we shall see.
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I canโt approach this as a good, unbiased media member should. Iโm still the kid who grew up just south of Boston. I went to college in Boston. I was raised on Larry Bird, Kevin McHale and Robert Parish. That doesnโt just go away.
But I think I can say โ without bias โ that these Celtics pulled off something pretty rare. They were preseason favorites. They dominated the regular season. Then they were everyย bit as dominant throughout their Finals run.
They exorcised so many demons along the way. Canโt win if they donโt hit 3s. Canโt win in the clutch. Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown canโt win together.
Those are all gone now. Just footnotes in the history of Banner 18. Thatโs what this one means to everyone back home.