A torch has been passed: Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum join the champions club and help Celtics raise Banner 18 - The Boston Globe (2024)

When it was over, Brown received the Bill Russell Finals MVP Trophy.

“It was a full team effort and Jayson Tatum was with me the whole way," said Brown.

Boston’s bookend superstars reached the summit in their seventh season together (107 career playoff games), shredding all competition in one of the most dominant seasons in the history of the league. With the two Jays leading the way, buffered by Brad Stevens’s acquisitions Derrick White, Jrue Holiday, and Kristaps Porzingis, the Celtics won 80 of 101 games and went 16-3 in the playoffs.

Blitzing past Miami (4-1), Cleveland (4-1), Indiana (4-0) and Dallas (4-1), coach Joe Mazzulla’s champs went five weeks without losing a playoff game before suffering a 38-point beatdown in Dallas last Friday.

They responded with full fury in the Garden finale, which was more coronation than competition. Boston took a 21-point lead at intermission on a more-than-halfcourt buzzer-beater from Payton Pritchard. The Celtics never trailed, and led by as many as 26 (78-52) in the third quarter.

Tatum finished with 31, Brown with 21. In the face of the Celtics and their “cult,” Kyrie Irving (15 points on 5-of-16 shooting) never knew what hit him and Luka Doncic delivered his usual 28.

The Celtics’ new hardware extends New England’s 21st century pro sports High Renaissance (13 championships for the Patriots, Red Sox, Bruins, and Celtics), which began when Tom Brady and the Patriots upset the St. Louis Rams in New Orleans in February 2002.

We worried that the magic ride might be over after Brady bolted for Tampa, but after a 5½-year “drought,” the Duck Boats again are ready to roll.

Nice work there by 35-year-old coach Mazzulla, who becomes the youngest coach to win an NBA championship since Bill Russell served as player/coach against the Lakers in 1969 while playing 48 minutes per night. (No wonder he won 11 championships in 13 seasons.)

“We got the best fans in the world," Mazzulla said from the winner’s stage. “You get very few chances in life to be great."

Throughout the afternoon and evening, the scene outside the Garden was a West End Woodstock as fans jammed streets and bars adjacent to North Station. There was urgency to get inside the perimeter once it was learned during the afternoon that the area would be sealed off at the end of the first quarter.

The Celtics got a boost with the return of 7-foot-2-inch center Porzingis (16 minutes of rim protection), who missed Games 3 and 4 with an ankle injury. Garden fans went wild when the big guy came out to warm up and the PA played Kevin Garnett’s favorite Phil Collins number, “In The Air Tonight." Folks were ready to party like it’s 2008.

Tatum and Brown made only one of their first 10 shots, but the Celtics were able to hold a lead throughout the quarter. Porzingis first appeared with 6:49 left in the first and the Celtics leading, 11-5.

The Celtics closed the quarter with a 9-0 run, highlighted by a Sam Hauser three, then a Hauser steal that led to a Tatum breakaway, then a Tatum steal and score. Boston led, 28-18 after one.

Tatum started taking it to the basket in the second and a 3-point play by JT gave the Celts a 15-point (46-31) lead with seven minutes left in the half. Pritchard played only four seconds of the half, but his 49-footer at the buzzer made it 67-46 at intermission.

A three by 38-year-old Al Horford (first ring after a million playoff games) early in the third pushed the lead to 25 and it peaked at 26.

All in all, it was a nice response to Friday’s 122-84 beatdown in Dallas.

Mavericks coach Jason Kidd taunted the Celtics after that game.

“Our group was ready to go," sniffed Kidd. “They were ready to celebrate."

It was embarrassing, no doubt, yet another test of Celtics fans who’d grown impatient with the two Jays. It was one more example of the Celtics channeling Tina Turner in her legendary “Proud Mary," intro when she said, “We never ever, do nothing nice and easy.”

The Texas Chain Saw massacre was, fact, the third-worst beatdown in Finals history, but veteran Celtics fans know enough not to let one blowout define a series.

We remember the Larry Bird Celts beating the Lakers, 148-114, in Game 1 in 1985, then losing the series in six games. A year earlier, the Celts were routed, 137-104, in Game 3 in LA,, but won three of the next four and visited Ronald Reagan in the Rose Garden one day after clinching banner No. 15 in the old Boston Garden.

Game 5 of these Finals was graduation day and utter redemption for the two Jays.

They’ve played together in the conference finals five times and this was their second NBA Finals in three seasons. They forced a conference finals Game 7 last year after falling behind the Heat, 3-0, but Tatum turned his ankle early in the finale and scored only 14 points (shooting 5 for 13) in a 103-84 slaughter. Brown was worse, making only 1 of 9 threes and committing eight turnovers.

That loss convinced Boston basketball boss Brad Stevens to shake up the roster. It was “goodbye” Marcus Smart, Robert Williams III, Grant Williams and Malcolm Brogdon. “Hello” Porzingis and Holiday.

And now, eight years after Danny Ainge (protege and grandson of Auerbach) drafted Brown, and seven years after he picked Tatum, the two Jays are in the club with Cooz and Satch, Larry and Max, and KG and Paul Pierce.

They have ascended to the mountaintop.

They are NBA Champions.

Dan Shaughnessy is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at daniel.shaughnessy@globe.com. Follow him @dan_shaughnessy.