Have Tatum, Brown, and Coach Mazzulla Finally Silenced the Critics After Winning the NBA Finals?

The Boston Celtics will finally be hoisting their 18th championship banner in the rafters of TD Garden after a 16-year championship drought. This championship effort was off the backs of an amazing team built by Brad Stevens, coached by Joe Mazzulla, and led by star players like Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum. This team had the most pressure of any team entering these playoffs because of a long history of playoff flameouts in recent years. However, they rose to the occasion and dominated all others in these playoffs with a 16-3 record and are now NBA Champions! However, this team was weirdly unconventional compared to most champions, and there is still criticism surrounding certain individuals on this team.

Jaylen Brown

This time last year, Celtics fans were clamoring for Jaylen Brown to be traded after a meltdown in the playoffs against the Heat in the Eastern Conference Finals. In that series, Jaylen Brown was averaging four turnovers a game while shooting 16% from three-point range and people thought there was no way Brown could work with Tatum to win a championship. Following the playoff fallout in 2023, the Celtics front office ignored all the Jaylen Brown hate and wisely signed him to a supermax contract worth $303.7 million over the next five years. Entering the playoffs this year, Brown had to show the world that he was worth his new contract and that he wouldn’t repeat his previous playoff blunders. Brown, not only, proved that he is a top-10 player in the league to his own fanbase but also the NBA after winning Eastern Conference Finals MVP and Finals MVP. Throughout the Celtics' run to the Finals, Jaylen Brown was not only a clutch shooter when they needed a basket most, but was also a staunch defender typically matching up on the opponent's best offensive player like when he guarded Luka Dončić the entire NBA Finals. With his playoff success this year, Jaylen Brown should silence all doubters. He has solidified himself as a bona fide superstar in this league and he absolutely deserves his flowers after leading the Celtics to the promised land this year.

Jayson Tatum

Jayson Tatum has been among the most undeservedly hated superstars in the NBA for the past few years. This is because Tatum is caught in a weird sports media predicament. With recent NBA Championship winners like the Nuggets, Warriors, Bucks, and Lakers all featuring previous league MVPs on their team, we as fans and sports media, typically attribute the championship team's success to the success of an individual player on that team. It is easy to make the case that teams win championships because they have the best individual player in the league. Sports media will commonly say that Nikola Jokić or Giannis Antetokounmpo won the championship for their teams when they have gotten to the Finals the past few years. However, when teams win championships without a top-five player, like Jayson Tatum and the Celtics this year, people tend to become overly critical of the face of the franchise because of the expectation that the best player on a championship team should be playing at an MVP level.

Last year, Jayson Tatum was lighting up the playoffs. This included a stellar 51-point game seven against the 76ers to go to the Eastern Conference Finals. However, even with those playoff performances, Tatum was still on the outside looking in on the top-five player conversation. Therefore, this year he was out to prove all the doubters wrong. However, unlike Jaylen Brown, who excelled under the pressure to succeed in these playoffs, Tatum just didn’t look like his previous playoff self. Although Tatum was averaging four more minutes a game in the Finals and playoffs when compared to the regular season, he averaged five points fewer but had two more assists per game. Even though Tatum was scoring less in these playoffs, he was contributing more to the team's success by helping his teammates get more involved as his assist totals rose significantly. As sports fans and media, this creates a weird feeling because we want to embrace the best player on a championship team, but typically the best player scores the most points and looks flashy while doing it. Therefore, Tatum gets all sorts of unnecessary hate because we want to see him score more and make cool plays instead of passing the ball to open teammates. Although Tatum might not be a top-five individual player in the league currently, what makes him a more valuable player than someone like Luka Dončić is that he is able to play in concert with his other teammates which elevates the team’s collective performance. What’s great for the Celtics is that it seems he is willing to forego personal recognition so the team can succeed together which is frankly more important in a superstar player than one who constantly demands all the attention.

Joe Muzzulla

Before Joe Muzzulla took the reigns of the Celtics, he was an assistant coach under Ime Udoka. Once Udoka was released by the Celtics, Muzzulla took over as the interim coach, helping the Celtics get to the Eastern Conference Finals last year. However, many people in Boston questioned if Muzzulla was a good coach because they believed that the Miami Heat, with Eric Spoelstra, coached circles around the Celtics on their way to the Finals with a less talented roster. Therefore, Muzzulla entered this season and playoffs with many haters. However, after the Celtics posted the best record in the regular season at 64-18 and going 16-3 in the playoffs, Muzzulla may have helped prove that he is the coach that Celtic fans have been waiting for. Under his leadership, he has built an underrated culture in Boston of selflessness and determination. Recognizing that he has players at all positions that can dominate he created a system that focuses on utilizing everyone instead of being reliant on one key player to make the entire team function. This way, if it isn’t one player’s night, they can easily pivot to another teammate to still give the team a great chance to win. Although the typical sports fans might not like that they can’t just praise one particular player on the team because of the team's insistence on sharing the basketball, Muzzulla has created a great team culture that gives the Celtics a great path to win games every single night. Although sports media may try to convince fans that basketball is all about individual players, it is up to great coaches to recognize the fundamental truth that basketball is a team sport which Joe Muzzulla and the Celtics have embraced beautifully resulting in a championship for the city of Boston.