Boston Celtics’ Journey to Their 18th Championship: An Analysis with Jaylen Brown as Finals MVP
Introduction
“May the odds be ever in your favor” could well describe the Boston Celtics‘ journey to their 18th championship. While the title often goes to the team with the highest peak performance of the season, there are years when consistency and balance triumph. The Celtics, after years of deep playoff runs, had the experience needed to seize this opportunity.
Celtics’ Victory: Not a Fluke
Their primary competitors fell by the wayside this year, but I believe their victory is far from a fluke. Any team that reaches this stage has earned it. While different champions face varying degrees of difficulty, within a given year, they all contend with the same league environment. The Celtics’ success is well-deserved.
Celtics’ Advanced Team-Building Philosophy
This year’s Celtics team navigated smoothly through the season. They might be the most remarkable team champions since the 2014 San Antonio Spurs and the 2015 Golden State Warriors. Winning without a top 5 player for the season is rare in NBA history. Recent champions like the Warriors with Kevin Durant and Stephen Curry, the Cavaliers with LeBron James, the Lakers with James and Anthony Davis, and the Bucks with Giannis Antetokounmpo, or the Nuggets with Nikola Jokić, all featured top contenders for the best player of the year.
Tatum and Brown’s Remarkable Journey
Jayson Tatum has never reached that level, and Jaylen Brown didn’t even make an All-NBA team this year, yet their team reached the pinnacle. Aside from the fierce competition in the Western Conference and the general lack of competitiveness in the East, a key factor could be their advanced team-building philosophy.
Historically, no team has won a championship with a lineup so close to “positionless basketball” as the Celtics. Even the Warriors’ famous “Hamptons Five” lineup had Draymond Green and Andre Iguodala in clear utility roles, while Klay Thompson resembled a traditional shooting guard.
Innovative Team Structure
This Celtics team features four perimeter starters with excellent face-up skills and shooting ability; Kristaps Porzingis is the precursor to Victor Wembanyama; Al Horford is the ideal stretch four who can also play small-ball center. His versatility is crucial to their success.
They are built as a model of modern basketball, continuously reshaping their roster after each playoff failure, eventually reaching an optimal, if not ideal, state.
Finals MVP Debate
Their roster advantage allowed them to do what the Timberwolves couldn’t in the Finals: freely switch defenders, mostly stick to single coverage, prevent alley-oops and corner threes, and trust that the opponent’s stars couldn’t single-handedly defeat them. Offensively, their spacing and the skill set of their starting lineup mitigated their stars’ weaknesses, distributing the offensive burden away from Tatum and Brown.
As a team, they outperformed the Mavericks, making this year’s Finals MVP particularly contentious.
Brown delivered many clutch performances in this series, especially his critical mid-range jumper in Game 4 that put the team up 3-1, reminiscent of Kevin Durant‘s Finals MVP in 2018. Thus, Brown’s MVP is well-earned. However, Tatum led the team in scoring, rebounds, and assists, a first in history without winning the series MVP. Brown was undoubtedly more efficient, but Tatum faced more defensive pressure. This paradox adds to the intrigue of their achievement.
Historical Comparison
A situation comparable to Tatum’s this year is Stephen Curry in 2015. In that series, Curry averaged 26 points, 6.3 assists, and 5.2 rebounds but lost the Finals MVP to Andre Iguodala, who significantly impacted the series’ outcome after starting Game 4. Iguodala averaged 16.3 points, 4 assists, and 5.8 rebounds in the series (this decision was later seen by many as a clear injustice).
Ignoring the early years when basketball was a different game, since 1980, there have only been a few instances where a team’s best offensive player did not win the Finals MVP: Cedric Maxwell (1981), Joe Dumars (1989), James Worthy (1988), Tony Parker (2007), Kawhi Leonard (2014), and Andre Iguodala (2015).
The best offensive player is not always the team’s top scorer. For example, in the 2004 Detroit Pistons, Richard Hamilton was the leading scorer, but Chauncey Billups was the most important offensive player.
Team Strength and Advanced Composition
Usually, on the Finals stage, a team needs one player to perform exceptionally well to pass the test. However, some years this is not the case. Some championship teams rely on superior team strength, rotation depth, or overall talent to win. Often, this is because these teams have more advanced compositions than other teams that season. This year is a prime example of such a case.
The “Bad Boys” Pistons of both eras had unique rosters, close to what we now call “future basketball.” Bill Laimbeer and Ben Wallace were agile centers who could switch defensively against various offensive players. Dennis Rodman was a super freak capable of guarding positions 1-5. Their forwards had great size and could apply strong defensive pressure. Both Pistons teams had 8-9 elite players, making their roster compositions very unique for their times.
The 2014 Spurs are the pioneers of modern basketball. Their impact on the league is comparable to the Warriors, with a heavy emphasis on Early Offense and Motion Offense, highlighting the importance of spacing and ball movement for the first time.
The 2015 Warriors were a team ahead of their time. No one had previously utilized players like Curry and Green or used small-ball lineups extensively to this extent.
Unexpected Finals MVP Results
These teams’ forward-thinking roster constructions overwhelmed their opponents that year, leading to surprising Finals MVP results. Some players who appeared to have an unexpected impact on the series received votes.
However, one significant reason Iguodala, Kawhi Leonard, and even Joe Dumars were selected is that they were perceived to have contained the series’ best stars, LeBron James and Michael Jordan. During those years, the Eastern Conference was essentially about LeBron and his “stoppers,” or Jordan and his “stoppers.”
However, unlike those past cases, Brown’s Finals MVP this year is not primarily because he defended the series’ best star, Luka Doncic. He earned the FMVP because Tatum was less efficient, being somewhat limited by the Mavericks. The performances of Tatum and Brown in the series were not significantly different in terms of impact.
Tatum vs. Brown: Who’s the Top Player?
The question of who is the Celtics’ top player has always been a hot topic. Tatum is undoubtedly that player now, but in some critical games, Brown’s performance appears significantly better. Brown fits the “prodigy” template more closely, with superior athleticism, dynamic talent, and better face-up driving ability. Tatum relies more on his jump shot to open up his game.
This is not to criticize Tatum, as he and his team have reached the pinnacle this season. While he hasn’t reached the offensive heights of James, Curry, or Jokic, he has become the best frontcourt player in this series. He switched onto the Mavericks’ center, becoming key to shutting down their alley-oop strategies.
Tatum’s Contributions and Future Prospects
As the Celtics’ primary star, Tatum demonstrated selflessness, coachability, and humility, allowing the team to fully integrate their strengths and enabling Brown to excel in the series, compensating for Tatum’s shortcomings.
In some ways, Tatum is reminiscent of the early Warriors-era Curry, with clear flaws in big games but serving as a perfect team player, a significant matchup advantage, and willing to relinquish some of his role as the primary star for the team’s success.
This means Tatum still has the opportunity to refine and elevate his game. Curry only reached his complete form by 2022, being widely recognized as a top-12 player of all time. As long as the Celtics remain competitive and Tatum continues to experience high-stakes games, this transformational growth might occur at some point.
Tatum and Brown had reached the Eastern Conference Finals at least four times before as teammates. They finally reached the ultimate destination on their fifth journey.
This team continues to create new possibilities, and watching this process is both exciting and full of anticipation.
