Boston Celtics break record with 18th NBA championship

The Boston Celtics broke a tie with the Los Angeles Lakers, winning their 18th NBA championship on Monday over the Dallas Mavericks.

For the first time since 2008, the Boston Celtics are NBA champions. Behind 31 points, 11 assists, and eight rebounds from Jayson Tatum, the Celtics defeated the Mavericks 106-88 to win the series in five games. It marks Boston’s 18th NBA title, breaking a tie with the Lakers to give them the most titles in league history.

Locked On Celtics host John Karalis recorded a post game reaction show live from the TD Garden, celebrating the team’s victory and the dominance of Boston’s two superstars.

“Jaylen Brown the MVP, amazing and well deserved,” Karalis said. “Jayson Tatum closed the door. They combined for 52 points, 17 assists, and 16 rebounds. They fixed a lot of the problems from Game 4.”

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Boston went up 3-0 in the series by winning two games in Dallas, but got crushed in Game Four in one of the biggest margins of defeat in NBA Finals history. They quickly erased that with a dominant performance on Monday, with Payton Pritchard putting an exclamation point on the blowout with a buzzer-beating shot from halfcourt to send the Celtics into halftime with a 21 point lead.

Boston never let up after that, and ultimately finished the playoffs with a 16-3 record – the second best record in an NBA playoffs since 2003, when the league went to best-of-seven round series. It was a cathartic night for the Boston faithful, as the Celtics had played more postseason games over an eight-year span without winning a title than any team in NBA history.

The win also gave Al Horford, a two time national champion back at Florida in 2007 and 2008, his first NBA title. Horford had played more playoff games than anyone in NBA history without winning a title prior to Monday night, a record that now goes back to John Stockton and Karl Malone.

For Dallas, a fantastic playoff run comes to a swift end. The Mavericks were the No. 5 seed in the western conference and made a triumphant run on the back of superstar Luka Doncic and veteran guard Kyrie Irving, but Irving in particular couldn’t get things going in the finals.

The NBA now turns to the offseason, with the NBA draft coming up on June 26 and June 27 before free agency starts a few days later.

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