At 2:45 a.m. Friday morning, Celtics fan Brian Babz and his buddy “Caveman” had been already exterior TD Backyard, beginning celebrations early earlier than the duck boats acquired rolling at 11 a.m.
Babz says he’s been working on adrenaline because the Celtics clinched their 18th banner Monday evening.
“It’s been a protracted drought for Boston sports activities parades, a protracted 5 years,” he mentioned. “And we wished to verify we acquired probably the most prime spot, proper in entrance of the TD Backyard and simply soak it in.”
He recalled the Celtics’ “dominant” championship run filled with unforgettable moments, like Payton Pritchard’s half-court shot in Sport 5 of the Finals — the sport that in the end received them the title.
“You understand what? The Boston Celtics have now established that they’re the crew of Boston — sorry, Patriots,” Babz mentioned.
He and “Caveman” had been a number of the first of greater than one million anticipated parade-goers on Friday.
The duck boats would be the coda on a season for the historical past books: This yr’s NBA Finals victory makes the Boston Celtics the primary crew within the league to ever win 18 NBA titles.
“Once you discuss NBA, you’re speaking Boston Celtics in the beginning,” Rusty Sullivan, government director of the Sports activities Museum at TD Backyard, advised GBH’s Morning Version.
Melissa Ferguson from Dorchester mentioned it was particular to see the crew get its 18th championship.
“They’re such a younger crew,” she mentioned. “They play properly collectively … no actual controversy throughout the crew, simply accidents. Only a nice crew. I’m simply so comfortable for them.”
Her daughter, Mynaja Ferguson, was simply as excited.
“It simply has been enjoyable rising up all right here, all our lives, simply seeing the Patriots, the Bruins, the Celtics, the Crimson Sox. We’ve one of the best metropolis on the planet for sports activities, so it’s all the time a enjoyable time to only see us win.”
As town celebrates, some shall be remembering the Celtics’ different historic firsts. A part of that historical past contains the crew changing into house to the primary Black participant drafted into the NBA, Charles “Chuck” Cooper, in 1950.
“The Celtics are only a particular group,” mentioned Chuck Cooper III, the Corridor of Famer’s son. “This actually began in 1950 after they drafted my father. Walter Brown employed Crimson Auerbach because the coach. And he instantly acquired Bob Cousy and drafted my father, two All-American basketball gamers in faculty. And that was the Celtics’ first profitable season.”
“Folks ask me: Why do I feel the Celtics win?” Cooper added. “As a result of they make nice choices. They’ve glorious management, even at this time from their possession to their entrance workplace throughout the group.”
It was additionally the primary NBA crew with an all-Black beginning 5 in 1964. A type of gamers was Invoice Russell, who turned the NBA’s first Black head coach when the Celtics employed him as a player-coach two years later.
The Celtics are a part of the material of town’s Black communities, a welcoming group in a area that’s not all the time welcoming to individuals of coloration, journalist and historian Dart Adams mentioned.
“Once you develop up in Boston, particularly within the interior metropolis, basketball is the whole lot. It’s tradition,” Adams mentioned. “The Boston Celtics are on the heart of it. We be taught life classes from Boston Celtics basketball, how the sport is meant to be performed, how we’re imagined to deal with issues in life, the best way to be a teammate, the best way to do the whole lot to win.”
And the Celtics’ 2024 crew “embodied all of that,” Adams mentioned.
“It means so much to the interior metropolis of Boston as a result of they recognized with this crew,” Adams mentioned. “Black Boston loves the Boston Celtics. It might need been a unique story within the ’80s when issues had been totally different, however the Boston Celtics are an inner-city crew — completely embraced by the entire metropolis.”
What received this yr’s championship was “this crew and the psychological toughness that group confirmed, led by their stars in Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown,” NBC Sports activities Boston Celtics sideline reporter Abby Chin mentioned. “These two guys have suffered a lot heartbreak of their basketball profession. And it might look like a foolish factor, however to be so shut so many occasions and never be capable to get there, and the stress that each of them are beneath, when you think about the crucible that’s sports activities in Boston.”
So what’s subsequent for the Celtics? Chin mentioned their leaders are already centered on the subsequent season. And their odds at a severe championship run subsequent yr are fairly good, Chin mentioned.
“I used to be contained in the locker room for the champagne showers, and I’ll always remember [head coach] Joe Mazzulla — soaked in champagne — and he simply seems to be at considered one of his assistants and he mentioned, ‘I’m prepared for apply tomorrow,’” Chin mentioned. “Sure, he’s celebrating, having fun with this second along with his household and clearly everybody who he felt like was a part of the journey for him. However there’s no query he’s in regards to the work and able to get again to it.”
Subscribe to The Wake Up
window.fbAsyncInit = function() { FB.init({
appId : '1721350727888295',
xfbml : true, version : 'v2.9' }); };
(function(d, s, id){ var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) {return;} js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));