Kevin McHale is not any stranger to hanging up banners on Causeway Avenue.
The Celtics legend and NBA Corridor of Famer received three titles in Boston over his 13 seasons of professional basketball — incomes seven All-Star nods and serving as a key cog on among the greatest Celtics rosters to ever play on the parquet flooring.
However the former star ahead was the latest Celtics nice to tip his cap to Boston’s newest championship roster — saluting the 2023-24 Celtics for lastly reaching the summit and successful the franchise’s 18th title.
Throughout an look on SiriusXM NBA Radio, McHale pressured that the figuring out issue that lastly put the Celtics excessive this postseason revolved across the development of the crew’s prime gamers.
“I believed (Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown) matured rather a lot,” McHale instructed co-hosts Frank Isola and Brian Scalabrine.
After a number of tough stretches throughout Boston’s failed playoff run in 2023, Brown was a drive down the stretch for the Celtics this spring — successful each Jap Convention Finals MVP and NBA Finals MVP on basketball’s highest stage.
Despite the fact that Tatum trudged by means of an prolonged taking pictures stoop (38.8 p.c) through the NBA Finals towards Dallas, he nonetheless discovered methods to positively influence the sport — averaging 7.8 rebounds and seven.2 assists per contest over the five-game collection.
“(Tatum) simply made passes and I used to be like, ‘Wow, all proper. So that you’re enjoying the stream of the sport,’” McHale mentioned. “You’re not enjoying in your numbers, you’re not enjoying for all these issues. You’re enjoying for the stream of the sport, and the stream of the sport simply dictates the place the ball rolls.
“And I believed Brown and Tatum lastly bought to the purpose of not enjoying the numbers, ‘I gotta get my numbers. I gotta do that. I gotta do this.’ They only performed stream basketball. I used to be simply so completely happy and happy with these guys.”
Each Tatum and Brown elevated their respective video games in 2024 to assist the Celtics lastly seize their sought-after 18th title. Their subsequent mission shall be to win back-to-back championships — a feat that the Celtics haven’t achieved since successful a pair of titles in 1968 and 1969.
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