Last week, Jayson Tatum and the Boston Celtics finally broke through to raise their first Larry O'Brien trophy in the last 16 seasons with a resounding victory in Game 5 over Luka Doncic and the Dallas Mavericks, winning the Finals in front of the TD Garden fans on the 16 year anniversary of doing the same exact thing in 2008 vs Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers. Tatum had far and away his best performance of the series in Game 5 but it wasn't enough to win the Finals MVP award, which instead went to Celtics teammate Jaylen Brown, who was much more consistent throughout the series and also played some excellent defense on Doncic.
In the week-plus since winning on the game's biggest stage, the Celtics have been world travelers, as first the team headed down to Miami to celebrate on South Beach, and then Brown was spotted at fashion week in Paris. On Monday, the team went on an outing to a Boston Red Sox game, with Tatum of course clutching the trophy all the while.
The Celtics then posted the photo of the star holding the trophy in front of a Red Sox sign that said “We play for championships” in the confines of Fenway Park on their account on X, the social media platform formerly referred to as Twitter.
https://x.com/celtics/status/1805390212446798033
Needless to say, fans were ecstatic at the cool flick.
“I’m afraid this pic goes immensely hard,” wrote one user.
“Celtics admin dropped another banger,” wrote another, referencing the fact that the Celtics' social media team has produced several viral pieces of content over the last few years.
Where does Jayson Tatum rank in the NBA (and does it matter?)
On the whole, there's no arguing that Jayson Tatum had a relatively disappointing performance in the NBA Finals from an individual perspective, for the second time in as many tries in his career. While he often used postgame press conferences to paint the illusion that he was simply more interested in getting his teammates involved, thus explaining his low scoring numbers through the first two games in Boston, the stat sheet revealed that Tatum was shooting a lot, and just missing.
However, the reality of the situation is that the Celtics don't need Tatum or anyone else to be the “best player on the floor” in order for them to find success given how brilliantly their roster is constructed for the modern NBA landscape. Just as LeBron James was clearly the best player on the floor in the 2017 and 2018 Finals vs the Kevin Durant Golden State Warriors, so too was Luka Doncic vs the Celtics, but it didn't matter because the Celtics had five of the seven best players in the series.
At this point, one can't help but wonder what the Celtics might look like if Tatum did play up to his capabilities in the Finals at some point. Pair that with a healthy Kristaps Porzingis, and you just might be looking at one of the greatest teams to ever step on the hardwood.
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