Celtics’ blueprint will be impossible to copy, and other leftover thoughts on the champions

One of my favorite vignettes covering this postseason run occurred after Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals in Indianapolis.

Jayson Tatum & Co. took Celtics fans on quite a ride this season.

June 27, 2024

4 minutes to read

COMMENTARY

A few final thoughts on the champion Celtics while smiling every time a stray piece of confetti tumbles out of my laptop bag . . .

· Winning the title changes the conversation about the Celtics in mostly welcome ways. Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown are champions forever, and not even the most moronic hot-taker can take that away from them.

Joe Mazzulla is an excellent coach who will keep getting better in the coming years, and all of his doubters — up to and including the moron typing this — have had to swallow their skepticism and eat their doubting words.

But I have found it amusing, among the narrative shifts, that there’s now chatter that the Celtics are the blueprint for how to build a champion.

Conventional wisdom has said that a top-three player is required to win a title, and a glance at recent championship rosters would seem to be a confirmation.

But with the Celtics’ victory, the new working theory is that teams should try to emulate the Celtics, who have two All-NBA-caliber two-way wings, two selfless All-Defense guards, two sharpshooting bigs, and are switchable and relentless on defense.

To which I say: Good luck with that. You have a better chance of lucking into a future MVP in the draft than you do of building a complex, connected roster that mirrors the Celtics.’

Credit should go to Celtics owner Wyc Grousbeck (left) and president of basketball operations Brad Stevens (right) for bringing in the invaluable Jrue Holiday.

Once you get past the unlikelihood of finding two multiskilled, durable wings like Tatum and Brown, then comes the tough part: finding a Jrue Holiday and a Derrick White.

I mean, how many guys are there like them in the league? It’s not more than five, it’s probably no more than three — and the Celtics have two.

· Unless you’re some quirky Celtics fan who doubles as, oh, a huge Jack Sikma supporter for some reason, you probably never gave much — or any — thought to the 1989-90 Milwaukee Bucks.

But the revelation this week that the fathers of Al Horford and Luke Kornet — that would be Tito Horford and Frank Kornet — were teammates on that Del Harris-coached Bucks squad revealed an uncanny assortment of other ties to the Celtics.

Tito Horford (left) has been a constant presence at Celtics games, watching his son Al.

Besides the Horford-Kornet duo (who combined to play 674 minutes for those 44-win Bucks), the father of Celtics assistant coach Phil Pressey, Paul, an ahead-of-his-time point forward, played 57 games for them.

The roster included ex-Celtics Gerald Henderson, Fred Roberts, Brad Lohaus, Jay Humphries, and Jerry Sichting, who played 27 minutes in his single game, the last of his career.

Tony Brown, who spent three seasons on Doc Rivers’s Celtics coaching staff, also played for that team.

· A few days after the credits have rolled on this unforgettable season, I still feel like I did last Monday night.

This is my favorite of all the Boston sports champions I have had the privilege to cover in my 20 years at the Globe. I don’t think the emergence of other championship teams or moving further away from the euphoria of the moment will change that, either.

This team has so many rare and special elements:

The deep camaraderie in their quest to fulfill their collective championship dreams; I haven’t seen many teams where the superstars and the deep reserves are the closest of friends.

The validation for Tatum and Brown and those who believed in them during their uneven ascent.

Horford being rewarded his second time around with the Celtics; when he left as a free agent after the maddening 2019 season, it felt like the end of something important. If Horford decided it was time to leave, maybe this was unsalvageable.

Turns out that, yes, it was a nadir. But it was far from the end. And enduring those frustrations along the way only made this sweeter.

· The most distinctive thing about these Celtics might be the emphasis on family, particularly fatherhood.

I’ve never seen a team that had so many of the players’ children nearby during games. Deuce Tatum and Ean Horford were around so often that they might be eligible for playoff shares.

I believe that made this group even closer. As you may have seen in the exceptional “All-In” episode that dropped Tuesday, Deuce even provided a moment of levity after Game 3 of the Finals, declaring in the locker room, “We almost lost!”

Holiday’s reaction might have been the hardest I saw him laugh all season.

· One of my favorite vignettes covering this postseason run occurred after Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals in Indianapolis. Fittingly, it was a dad thing.

Holiday had seized the game for the Celtics with a couple of late baskets and an instantly legendary steal when the Pacers were attempting to take the lead. As he took the podium for a press conference, he said quietly, “Come on. Come on.”

It wasn’t clear, at least to me, whom he was talking to or what he meant.

Then I heard a little voice a row behind me: “But Daddy said I could come up.”

It was Holiday’s 7-year-old daughter, JT. Before she got the OK from her mother, Lauren, she bolted down the aisle, recognizing her dad’s “come on” was for her, and joined him and her little brother on the podium.

It was a small moment, but it has stuck with me as one that nicely summarizes what these Celtics were about. Coming through in the biggest moments, again and again, and sharing those successes with everyone, especially the people they care about most.

Legacies don’t get much better than that.