They did the thing, finally. The Boston Celtics are your 2024 NBA Champions after a historic 2023-24 NBA regular season and an equally historic run to the long-coveted Banner 18. The game and series were won with teamwork and defense in classic Boston style, sending beloved Boston broadcaster Mike Gorman off with a proper closeout to a storied career.
With the win, Celtics mystique has been reborn, a new generation of superstars established, and a new era of greatness for the most storied ball club in the history of the league. There will be time enough soon for detailed breakdowns of the game, the series, and the season.
But tonight, your "Celtics Lab" podcast hosts of the CLNS Media network simply soaked it in, and shared their thoughts on this historic moment and what it means to Cameron Tabatabaie, Alex Goldberg, and Justin Quinn.
Prize Picks! Get in on the excitement with PrizePicks, America’s No. 1 Fantasy Sports App, where you can turn your hoops knowledge into serious cash. Download the app today and use code CLNS for a first deposit match up to $100! Pick more. Pick less. It’s that Easy! Go to https://PrizePicks.com/CLNS
Gametime! Take the guesswork out of buying NBA tickets with Gametime. Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code CLNS for $20 off your first purchase. Download Gametime today. Last minute tickets. Lowest Price. Guaranteed. Terms apply. Go to https://gametime.co !
#celtics #NBA #BostonCeltics
With the win, Celtics mystique has been reborn, a new generation of superstars established, and a new era of greatness for the most storied ball club in the history of the league. There will be time enough soon for detailed breakdowns of the game, the series, and the season.
But tonight, your "Celtics Lab" podcast hosts of the CLNS Media network simply soaked it in, and shared their thoughts on this historic moment and what it means to Cameron Tabatabaie, Alex Goldberg, and Justin Quinn.
Prize Picks! Get in on the excitement with PrizePicks, America’s No. 1 Fantasy Sports App, where you can turn your hoops knowledge into serious cash. Download the app today and use code CLNS for a first deposit match up to $100! Pick more. Pick less. It’s that Easy! Go to https://PrizePicks.com/CLNS
Gametime! Take the guesswork out of buying NBA tickets with Gametime. Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code CLNS for $20 off your first purchase. Download Gametime today. Last minute tickets. Lowest Price. Guaranteed. Terms apply. Go to https://gametime.co !
#celtics #NBA #BostonCeltics
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00All right, welcome to Celtics Lab podcast. I'm Cameron Tisdale, I'm joined by Alex Goldberg
00:14and Dr. Justin Quinn. This episode of the Celtics Lab podcast is brought to you by PrizeFix
00:17and by Game Time Tickets and by the 2024 NBA champion Boston Celtics. I am in a hallway
00:24in the back halls of TD Garden and at any moment I might dip and pass the reins to Alex
00:28and Justin. But for now, I'm going to help guide our conversation as we break down Game
00:335, which was an absolute masterclass, the series, which was not very competitive, and
00:38the season, which was mostly good things if you're the Boston Celtics. Alex, Justin, how
00:44are you?
00:45Cameron, I'm doing real freaking good because the Boston Celtics are the best team in basketball,
00:54the best team on the planet, and Banner 18 has been secured. What a moment, what a season.
01:03Holy hell.
01:05Cameron disappeared. He's back again.
01:09That's because I took a celebratory screenshot. Justin, how are you?
01:13I am in Mexico City drinking a very nice mezcal I picked up from a little tiny town called
01:19Malinalko. And I have not had a drink during game time for a long time because all the
01:27time I'd be an alcoholic, but tonight it is warranted.
01:31Yeah, I mean, this was a hell of a game. The play of the game is the Pritchard heave. I
01:37mean, I think that was whatever chance Dallas had, you just knew that it was one of those
01:41nights. I mean, sports is probably not as mystical as we want it to be, but there was
01:45just something magical about that.
01:47You just said that sports are not mystical. A championship won exactly 16 years to the
01:56day of the last time they won a title, but the 6-1-7 area code, fellas, come on.
02:03Okay, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe tonight is too positive that sports are not about strategies
02:09or X's and O's. They're actually about appeasing the various sports gods. And whatever the
02:15Celtics did to appease the basketball gods, they did it well. Yeah, the mood here is awesome.
02:21I think everyone was really tired. I think everyone did not want to go back to Dallas
02:27for so many different reasons. I've never been in the back halls of a title, and people
02:34are hugging, people are dapping each other up. Every corner, there's yells. This is staggering.
02:41I bought shots for Knicks fans tonight, guys.
02:46You're a charitable guy.
02:50They need something, man. They need something.
02:54I think in another episode, we'll try to say something analytical and smart, but for now,
03:02let's just continue to...
03:05Next episode. Next episode. I mean, this episode. That's not what we're doing.
03:09I might be with Toledo Presser in a moment. Let's see. Someone's coming down the hallway.
03:15Oh, maybe not. This is...
03:19It's so fun, especially because everyone has goggles on. I think Tatum is about to go.
03:23Fred Hampton just came out. Yeah, Tatum's gone. I'm going. See ya. Wish me luck.
03:28Okey-dokey.
03:31It's just us, man.
03:33While Cameron goes off to ask Jason Tatum, presumably an exuberant Jason Tatum, some questions,
03:40we here at Celtics Lab got you covered. JQ, take it away, man. Just give me a few minutes.
03:48The season, the finals, the playoffs, what do you got?
03:53Oh, man. So the first thing I would like to say is that as frustrated as I have been covering this team at times,
04:03it was very evident they would get here at some point, which made the ride more than worth it.
04:10Over the course of the time between this championship and the last championship,
04:15I have started and finished my bachelor's degree, my master's degree, my PhD.
04:22I have moved from the Northeast to the state of Florida, to Louisiana, to Mexico, to Yucatan, to Mexico City.
04:33A lot of things have happened since the last time the Boston Celtics won a title.
04:38And, you know, the whole journey from one title to another is longer than I expected to see,
04:49but in a way also shorter in that the turnaround from the last era of title contention to an era of title-ish contention was really, really quick.
04:59And the raw talent was always there.
05:02I mean, they were almost back in the mix as soon as they were done drafting the first of the players that they got after the rebooting, if you will, of the Celtics with Marcus Smart.
05:16I mean, only one year out of the postseason, they were back in the Eastern Conference finals in unbelievable time.
05:23In comparison to living through the period of time between the time before that and the 2008 title, there was no wilderness period.
05:33The Celtics have been a joy to watch. There have been plenty of road bumps.
05:37But I think I'm speaking on behalf of most fans of the Celtics and saying that it was worth it, you know,
05:44to see a team built this way, put together with two binary stars in any sense you want to take that,
05:55just to see how when we finally got to the mountaintop that all of the narratives of do we need to get rid of one of them?
06:03Do they hate each other? Do they actually like each other?
06:06Like just all the negative narratives just getting flushed down the toilet with gusto.
06:11And even I feel so bizarre saying it, but like Kyrie Irving, like being magnanimous in defeat,
06:18just like we are in like pinch yourself to see if you're actually awake territory at this point.
06:28Where it starts for me is this.
06:35In 2015, the Boston Celtics signed Al Horford.
06:44And that guy freaking did something. And now he's going to the Hall of Fame as an NBA champion.
06:51And if you don't think that that is the coolest freaking thing, I just don't know how we can ever see eye to eye on a sports level.
07:03To see Al Horford and Brad Stevens build a culture and then to see the Jays soak everything that that culture had into how they approach the game,
07:17the way that they work, the way that they get better every year, the chemistry they've built,
07:23the commitment to doing all of the important stuff that it takes to win.
07:28It's just it's the most special sports team I have ever watched from top to bottom.
07:39Jaylen Brown went from unplayable in his rookie season to finals MVP.
07:46It's the most remarkable player development story I've ever watched.
07:50Jason Tatum, after being slandered for not being the guy who can rise to the occasion,
07:57for not being the guy who can put the team on his back when it matters most,
08:02was an assassin in a closeout game for the NBA freaking finals.
08:08Derek White and Drew Holliday, overlooked, consistently thought of as good but not great fine role players,
08:17nice complimentary pieces, formed the most lethal defensive backcourt I've ever watched in the history of basketball.
08:25And I've been watching this shit for a while because I'm 31 and I've been watching since I was a teenager.
08:33Alrighty, pausing the action to talk about our friends over at PrizePix,
08:36because this summer you can turn your love and passion for sports into a chance to win big with PrizePix.
08:40In fact, you can pick more or less on just two player stats and win up to 100 times your entry fee.
08:45The gameplay is fast and easy too, I literally make my first lineups in the morning,
08:49takes under a minute, and whether it's Jason Tatum's rebounding,
08:52Kaitlyn Clark's three-point shooting, or if I'm feeling good about the Red Sox,
08:55I can get in on the action no problem.
08:57Plus, PrizePix has tons of promotions all the time.
08:59They offer injury insurance, so if your player gets hurt, your lineup is still in the game.
09:03There's no better way to add some excitement to the NBA Finals and all your other favorite sports this summer than with PrizePix.
09:08Download the PrizePix app today and use the code CLNS for a first deposit match up to $100.
09:14That's CLNS for a chance to double your money. Pick more, pick less, it's that easy.
09:20Joe Mizzoula, after a full offseason and a full year of hearing how he wasn't up to the job,
09:30how he wasn't qualified, he wasn't supposed to be here, he didn't have it in him to get it done.
09:36Virtuoso season from Joe Mizzoula, just a dominant coaching run, like truly through some absolute heat out here.
09:47Chris Dapsporzingis, overlooked, bounced around the league, injury prone, couldn't stay on the court when it matters.
09:55Played out here on one leg in a closeout game in the NBA Finals and made critical, momentum-swinging plays.
10:04Peyton Pritchard, Sam Hauser, Luke Cornett, Xavier Tillman, all guys overlooked, throw-ins, low draft picks,
10:13never really thought that they were going to be NBA players. Now they're NBA champions.
10:20And they're not going anywhere. But, you know, to me, it just...
10:28Al Horford represents everything that you want to see in a pro athlete.
10:33And to see him have this moment is like one of the most special things I can think of as a sports fan.
10:40University of Florida alum Aki.
10:45They sent Mike Gorman off in his retirement season with a ring.
10:51If you don't like that, I don't know. I don't know what to tell you. If you think that's boring, if you think that's lame.
10:57I've seen so much criticism about this team playing an AI-generated basketball, like that they're boring,
11:05that they just kind of run over everybody. Oh, the least interesting NBA season. Blah, blah, blah.
11:12Do you watch the sport? Do you understand how basketball works?
11:17Because if you understand how basketball works, you know how special this is.
11:21You know how cool that is to watch these guys develop and build and grow together to form this freaking juggernaut.
11:31And it was built in the Celtics way, like the Celtics way of old.
11:34There were, you know, big moves here and there, but the core of the team that won this title was developed from within.
11:41And the title was won with teamwork and, dare I say, defense.
11:46Defense was the key to this title. Defense was the key to this game. Defense was the key to this season.
11:54Offense, yeah, sure, offense wins titles in that you have to score the most points.
11:59But in the grand debate of what's the most important thing for winning this particular title with this particular team, defense was the foundation.
12:12It was special to watch. And to all the folks out there who are probably not loyal Celtics Lab listeners,
12:23who are going to get, say, Mickey Mouse run. Celtics never played a fully healthy team.
12:29Or the Mavs weren't supposed to be here. What a perfect matchup for them.
12:33Or if Giannis isn't hurt, or if Embiid isn't hurt, or if, you know, whoever is still there.
12:41Jimmy Butler isn't hurt. Celtics don't win the title.
12:49I have nothing to say to you because Jason Tatum and Jalen Brown are stamped for life now.
12:56Brad Stevens is stamped for life. Joe Mizzoula, Al Harford, Derek White, Drew Holiday.
13:04Nobody's going to remember, oh, if only Jimmy Butler were healthy, if only Joe Mizzoula.
13:10Nobody's going to remember that. They're going to remember about the 2024 NBA season.
13:15Celtics beat everybody's asses over and over and over again on a dominant run to the NBA title.
13:25That's what they're going to remember about this season.
13:28I have losses.
13:30Five. That's astonishing. Not even, J. Hugh. They literally lost three games in the postseason.
13:40Oh my God, you're right. Yeah, I suck at math.
13:44They lost three. Three games. They went 16-3 in the postseason. They went 64-18.
13:51They never lost more than two games at any point ever. Literally.
13:5764-18 in the regular season, and they went 16-3 in the playoffs.
14:03They absolutely smacked the league around for a whole year, and it didn't matter who was out there.
14:11Oh, Porzingis missed his time? Guess what, Al Horford.
14:15Oh, Derek White and Drew Holiday are struggling? Guess what, Peyton Pritchard can give you 20 minutes.
14:23Ah, Jason Tatum's shot isn't falling.
14:27Oh well, here's Jalen Brown.
14:30Like, if you don't like what you just saw, and you do not know what basketball is about, I'm sorry.
14:43And to the Lakers fans and the Heat fans who might be listening with schadenfreude, listen guys, ladies, folks.
14:52We may be bitter enemies, but I know you know what good basketball looks like.
14:59I was dapping it up with Knicks fans tonight, man.
15:03And yeah, they were not thrilled that the Seas won the title, but they knew what they saw.
15:09You know, it's interesting. I moved to New York last year, and I was very excited about it, and I continue to be very excited about it.
15:19I was a little bittersweet about the fact that I was moving away from the Seas.
15:23But you can still feel it.
15:31And that's special.
15:32I'm here in Mexico City, and I feel it, man. Proximity is not required.
15:37It's not.
15:39And ball knowers recognize ball.
15:44I just, like, Jason Tatum and Jalen Brown are going to have their numbers retired by this team.
15:52At this point?
15:54Are you serious?
15:55You win a title, it's kind of a given.
15:58As long as you have at least a supporting role, it is not out of the question.
16:02If you have a central role, I don't see how you don't.
16:05That's crazy.
16:09Like, these guys are 26 and 27, and their numbers are going to be retired by the most successful franchise in the history of sport.
16:20That's crazy.
16:25Holy moly, man.
16:27What a special year.
16:29It's really hard to put it in perspective at this particular moment.
16:33I mean, like, I am just finding difficulty trying to articulate all the various emotions from the things that we witnessed.
16:42From, you know, watching Tatum try to kind of recreate his own Kevin Garnett moment, which some people might say is corny.
16:50But for me, it shows the deep reverence that he has for the organization he is a part of.
16:56That when it is his moment to shine, he wants to pay homage to the people who came before him.
17:02And when it comes time for Galen Brown to win finals MVP, that frankly, even, you know, I've been one of the biggest Galen Brown stompers since he was drafted by the Celtics, even before he was drafted by the Celtics.
17:16And to see him take the moment to thank his teammates and Jason Tatum for the award that he just won, which many people would look at as something that he might, you know, jealously, like, guard to himself to validate himself.
17:30It just really speaks to the bedrock of what this team is, which is more than the sum of their parts.
17:37Yeah.
17:39And, you know.
17:41So one thing that I'm just thinking about right now is Brad Stephens, and how Brad Stephens shepherded this team through a rebuild as a coach.
17:56You watch those guys come up, you built them into the players that they are today in many respects, taught them how to play the game the right way, taught them how to care about defense taught them how to value the ball and offense to look to build something that as you said is more than the sum of its parts, where basketball is about making the players around you better.
18:21And also making yourself better and making your team better as a whole.
18:25What a perfect way to kind of stamp Brad Stephens place among, I think, the true like historically important figures in basketball in this era.
18:43Built Butler out of nothing took them to two NCAA finals, both of which they lost one in heartbreaking fashion, one in a blowout made the leap to the NBA as an untested coach, I mean, college great.
18:59Not the NBA to take over a historic franchise a title winning franchise, and be the primary driver behind rebuilding that team to win the confidence of so many important basketball minds to come in and stamp in his name as a great coach.
19:23And then to leave that behind to go into a front office role, where he was totally unproven had no experience as a front office guy.
19:34And to just nail it from day one, win after win after when I've said multiple times on this podcast and elsewhere, Brad Stephens has never lost a trade.
19:46Do you know how frickin hard that is.
19:49Okay, pausing the action to talk about game time, the NBA finals are here and wouldn't be great to be there live for the big games.
19:54Unfortunately, tickets be so expensive, especially when you buy them last minute.
19:57But that's where game time comes in.
19:59The game time app actually shows prices that go down the closer you get to tip off for some of the biggest games.
20:04They've got killer last minute deals all in pricing with no hidden fees.
20:08And they even show you what the view looks like from your seat before you buy.
20:12It's not just basketball, you can see your favorite baseball team or concert.
20:16And there's flash deal sections for even deeper discounts.
20:19This is so easy, I just pick my section and I let game time find some great seats for me, either Fenway Park, at a concert or wherever else.
20:27Game time is the best way to buy tickets.
20:29They've got last minute deals, flash deals, zone deals, anything you need for big savings, no matter when you buy.
20:35Plus the lowest price guarantee means if you find a better deal, they'll credit you 110% of the difference.
20:40So don't miss out on the action.
20:42Take the guesswork out of buying tickets with game time.
20:44Download the app, create an account and use the code CLNS for $20 off your first purchase.
20:50That's CLNS for $20 off.
20:52Download game time today.
20:54Last minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed.
20:57And you know, I think that part of it is the philosophy change between the two of them.
21:02Because Danny is just like, if there was a blowout version of a trade, that was what he always aimed for.
21:08Whereas Brad has always been more in the perfect is the enemy of the good camp.
21:14And let me tell you, collectively, drip by drip, drop by drop, that came through in a big way.
21:23I just like to have the confidence to know that Joe Mizzoula is your guy.
21:30After the collapse of the Ebay Udoka year, when everything was on the line for this team, truly everything.
21:39Coming off of a finals defeat where the only way was up, where they had so much promise and then to be derailed by that.
21:48And to know that an obscure assistant coach that nobody thought about, and nobody really considered at any point,
21:56was the right guy to lead this team to a title.
22:00And to be right on that, to be right on trading for Al Horford for the second time around,
22:06even though everything suggested that Al Horford was headed for a decline period in his career as he was getting older.
22:14To have the stones to trade a beloved franchise icon in Marcus Smart.
22:20And wow, shout out to Marcus Smart, because you built something here too, man.
22:25But to have the stones to trade that guy, with all the pressure on the line, with everything on this team,
22:37all the concerns about leadership, about maturity, about who are they going to be able to turn to when things get hard.
22:46To take that player and deal him and remake the team on the fly,
22:53one year after nearly pulling off the most impressive comeback in NBA history.
23:00A literal broken ankle away or sprained ankle away.
23:04Man, just, it's hard not to think about this team and what they've accomplished now and where they're headed.
23:13And have faith that somehow, someway, Brad Stevens will find a way.
23:19He will get the best out of whatever version of this team exists.
23:23And listen, the Celtics are not going to win the title every year. It's not going to happen.
23:29It's going to be really hard for them to do this again next year.
23:32Back-to-back is incredibly difficult. It is rarefied air.
23:37There are very few teams in NBA history that have been able to actually pull that off.
23:41And they usually have generational all-time great players.
23:45And I think as good as Jason Tatum and Jalen Brown have been, we can't get there yet with them as generational all-time guys.
23:53Not when LeBron is out there, not when Steph is out there, you know.
23:59But to know that this team has the potential to do that, and that even if they don't, they're going to be in this thing for a while.
24:08Tell me, in the overarching history of the Celtics, isn't this one of the all-time great teams?
24:17Are we a prisoner of the moment? I mean, where do we place them in a very superficial, I haven't looked at the books, I haven't really thought about it until just now.
24:26Where do you put them?
24:28It's hard to say, but to me, I think they have to be, right?
24:34Considering how badly they wrecked everybody that they came across.
24:41Almost 80% win rate all the way through from start to finish.
24:46The stats and the math obviously back it up, right?
24:49From a shooting variance like, you know, the win rate and all of the net rating stuff, that's all there.
24:57That's kind of the case with all historic teams. All historic teams have the stats stuff.
25:02Like, if you look at the 86 Celtics, their stats were unbelievable that year.
25:07So the stats stuff isn't really what moves me in that argument, to be honest, as good as they were.
25:13The win-loss record, I think there's a real argument, given how badly they beat everybody, that they deserve to be considered amongst the great Celtics teams.
25:27I would not be, as much as Jalen Brown, I think, would like to say, you know, based on conversation.
25:35I know where you're going.
25:36The second year or something like that, I don't think that this team is quite as good as the 86 Celtics.
25:42But they're a lot closer than I think a lot of people would admit without, you know, off the top of their head.
25:47If you really look down, you really dial down at where the league was at, how much talent was in it, what sports science has done, people's ability to play basketball at this point.
25:58When you compare all of those things, how many Hall of Famers were on that team compared to this team?
26:04I think we have at least three Hall of Famers on this team, and we might have four.
26:09Yeah, I mean, Drew Holliday's going to the Hall of Fame.
26:13He's a two-time champion.
26:15Now, he's made multiple all-defensive teams.
26:18Drew Holliday's going to the Hall.
26:21Al Horford's going to the Hall.
26:23Jason Tatum and Jalen Brown are both going to the Hall.
26:26That's four right there.
26:28Four of your starting five is Hall of Famers.
26:32I believe, I believe, I could be wrong, but I believe 85 had five Hall of Famers.
26:38Yeah.
26:39That's pretty good.
26:40That's pretty close.
26:41That's pretty freaking good.
26:43I mean, from a playoff win rate standpoint, they have the 018 cleared as much as I have loved that 018.
26:51And Kevin Garnett, I mean, I love Tatum and Brown.
26:56Kevin Garnett is definitely the best player I've ever watched in a Celtics uniform, and I don't think that's particularly close.
27:01And I think those guys would probably agree.
27:04But this team was way more dominant than that team in a playoff run standpoint.
27:10Now, they had different competition.
27:12They played a lot of injured teams, for sure.
27:15But they lost three games in the playoffs.
27:18That's what you would have expected in playing those teams, right?
27:21Exactly.
27:22There are very few teams in NBA history that can say they've won three or fewer games in the playoffs.
27:29It's like the 17 Warriors, largely considered to be the best team in modern history.
27:35It's like the Spurs in 2014 when they shredded the entire NBA in the postseason.
27:45And even that team, they had a tough first series.
27:48There are not many teams.
27:52That's like Jordan Bulls territory.
27:57So only dropped three games in the postseason.
28:00Shaq and Kobe, 2001, obviously only dropping one is the gold standard, right?
28:06But holy moly.
28:09I'm not even sure that we can really process what we just saw right now.
28:14We just saw a changing of the guard is what we just saw.
28:17The new NBA is here.
28:18The NBA we grew up with as fans, particularly me being as old as I am.
28:23Bye-bye.
28:24Time out.
28:25Yeah.
28:26New era.
28:27It's a new era.
28:28And I think you can argue that Tatum and Brown are the first guys of that era to really go there.
28:36Like, I don't consider Tatum and Brown to be quite the same generation as the Jokic, Giannis and Bede generation.
28:43Even though from a peer group, they're about as old as Jokic is.
28:48To me, that represents a transition period between LeBron, Steph and Durant to whatever's next.
28:56The transition period is in Bede, Jokic, Giannis.
29:01Tatum and Brown are the first guys of that generation to win a title.
29:05And I'm sure more of them will.
29:07Luka is going to get his guys.
29:10That guy is called.
29:11This might not be the first time or last time, excuse me, that we see a Celtics-Mavs finals.
29:17I would not be surprised if they have a different coach, which is a topic for another podcast.
29:22But they have a good four.
29:25And Kyrie is a little older, but he's been aging pretty well.
29:29Luka is on the upswing.
29:30And Derek Lively is going to be a good player for a very long time.
29:33I expect to see them very strongly in the West.
29:36There's going to be some changes.
29:38We can talk about them more.
29:40There's a lot of injuries, a lot of unusual things shaking up the West.
29:44So you can make the argument you want about the East being injured in whatever on the way to the playoffs.
29:50But throughout the entire season, yeah, it was like freaking Mad Max out there.
29:56You really cannot underestimate like the Memphis Grizzlies, for example, being the season that they had.
30:03Just like you can look up and down in both conferences and find plenty of things to point to.
30:09So I don't think you should devalue anything that either team did.
30:14Jason Kidd is not the greatest coach, but he is vastly improved.
30:18And if they do keep him, the Mavs are going to be in a good position.
30:23Oh, yeah.
30:24As long as they have Luka and even a half-decent supporting caster on them, they're going to be incredibly dangerous every year.
30:34To put things in perspective, when Luka hit a step back three with Boston up 21 with six minutes left in this game,
30:44I started to get nervous because that's just how good that dude is.
30:49That's why I said this year, we're going to go six games.
30:52I was expecting just more incandescent games from him.
30:55And we got one, and we got to win.
30:58But he needs more help.
31:01Anthony Edwards is coming, man.
31:03That guy's a great player.
31:05There's also this really tall guy from San Antonio.
31:07You may have heard of him.
31:09Good lord.
31:10What are we supposed to do when Wenbanyama hits his prime?
31:13Right, exactly.
31:15Rebuild!
31:17Yeah.
31:18Rebuild.
31:19But the fact that the young guy's generation is here now, and Tatum and Brown are the guys to lead that,
31:26to really put their stamp on this, is just so freaking cool, man.
31:33It's just special.
31:35I mean, I remember watching Jason Tatum's summer league debut and being like,
31:41huh, Denny Angemite actually made a good pick here.
31:45I remember being ecstatic that Denny did not take Dragon and freaking Bender
31:51and took the guy that I was begging people to see because the spacing of his call of duty was garbage.
31:57And he was going to prove me right.
32:00And boy, he proved us all right.
32:03Yeah.
32:04Shout out to Denny Ange, man.
32:06One of the ballsiest trades in NBA history.
32:11You've got to have some serious stones to trade two franchise legends for a bunch of picks that you don't know what's going to happen with them.
32:20To have them pan out as these guys.
32:23You could say this title was actually won because Red Auerbach did not trade Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, and Robert Parrish.
32:33And it pissed Denny.
32:34It burned something into Denny's psyche for the rest of his life.
32:38Yeah.
32:39I mean, like, you know.
32:42Thanks, Red.
32:43Right about.
32:44Thanks.
32:46And Denny, listen, he's kind of been vindicated by everything that happened here in a lot of ways.
32:52Taking Peyton Pritchard when, you know, there were better players on the board.
32:56And I think I was certainly not thrilled that Desmond Bain fell to Memphis at 30 when we took Peyton Pritchard.
33:05We'll talk about that.
33:07Yeah, right.
33:08Like, just the vision for Danny Ainge has, despite a lot of dicey moments there, has really been vindicated.
33:17And holy hell, Justin.
33:21The Belts and Celtics are the champs for the first time in 16 years.
33:26The Celtics are back on top.
33:28And it sure seems like they're not going anywhere anytime soon.
33:33Got to leave two more runs in them, I think.
33:37What a day.
33:38We're going to be thinking about this the whole summer.
33:41And then some.
33:44Shout out to the Z's, man.
33:46Shout out to Jason.
33:47Shout out to Jalen, finals MVP.
33:50Joe Mizzoula, Al Horford, Derek White, Drew Holliday, Brad Stevens, Christophe Sporzingis, Sam Hauser, Peyton Pritchard, Xavier Tillman, Luke Cornett, O'Shea Brissett.
34:05Svea McIlion.
34:07Saw your youth green flag.
34:09Good deal.
34:11Jordan Walsh.
34:17Delano Banton.
34:21Like, holy moly.
34:22Lamar Stevens.
34:23Lamar Stevens.
34:24Thank you.
34:25Shout out.
34:26Thank you.
34:28What a time.
34:29J.D. Davison.
34:30Thank you.
34:32Top to bottom.
34:34It starts with the equipment manager.
34:35Giannis was right about that.
34:38Full organization gets credit for this one.
34:42I think the way we got to wrap it up is this.
34:48Mike Gorman held down the booth for decades.
34:53And the one thing that that guy wanted for his last year, his retirement season,
35:01was to win another NBA title.
35:03To get 18.
35:05And the guys delivered for Mike Gorman.
35:08What a season.
35:14Holy moly, what a season.
35:17This episode of the Celtics Lab podcast is brought to you by Price Fix, the exclusive fantasy basketball partner of the CLNS Media Network.
35:24Celtics Lab is also brought to you by Game Time Tickets, last minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed.
35:28If you enjoyed this pod, check out the How About Them Celtics podcast, first of the four podcasts, and the many other New England sports podcasts available on the CLNS Media Network.
35:39I'm Alex Goldberg, the play base in the band that you heard at the time.
35:43If you like that music, check out Divine Sweater on Instagram and on Spotify and on Twitter and on SoundCloud and on Apple Music.
35:52Come to our shows, dammit.
35:53We'd love to see you.
35:56I'm here with Justin Quinn, the doc, holding it down for years.
36:01Justin, where can we find your stuff?
36:03Celtics Wire, this podcast that you happen to be listening to.
36:07And, you know, maybe if you are in the city of Boston sometime in late July, maybe you'll see me there, too.
36:17Cameron Tabatabai, our fearless leader, is currently at the press conference.
36:22He's soaking it all in in the TD Garden.
36:24Cam, you did a great job, man.
36:28The Boston Celtics are your 2024 NBA champions, and life is good, folks.
36:35We're going to keep churning this stuff out over the next couple of days, and then we'll probably slow down for the summer.
36:42Thank you for being on the ride.
36:45Have a good night, dear listener.
36:48Peace.