“They said we couldn’t play together…” Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown laugh it off again and here they are facing their destiny: to prove that they are the worthy descendants of a long line of champions with Boston, from Thursday in the final against Golden State.
“They cannot coexist”. Former pivot Kendrick Perkins, who was part of the Celtics’ 17th and final coronation team in 2008, was adamant on January 7, the day after the fiasco of the Massachusetts team in New York, beaten after 25 point lead against the Knicks.
He was not the only one to plead for the departure of one of the two young stars, in order to relaunch the green machine then stuck in 11th place in the East. But Brad Stevens, president of basketball operations who left his coaching chair to Ime Udoka this season, knew the two players, whom he trained for a long time, well enough not to give in.
“They are by far the least of my worries,” he said then, while working to recruit, judiciously, Derrick White (Spurs) in exchange for Dennis Schroder. And almost six months later, his management proves him right.
To say, however, that there has been no recurring problem in the cohabitation between Brown (25) and Tatum (24), willing solo talents for the five seasons they have played together, would be wrong.
Point guard Marcus Smart, the C’s’ third strongman, also complained about it at the height of the crisis: “All the teams know that we are going to try to go through Jayson and Jaylen in attack, so they have studied the ways to stop them. But these two do not want to pass the ball. It’s something they’re going to have to learn.”
The questioning paid off, since in almost six months, Boston transformed its basketball and overturned almost everything in its path to finish 2nd in the East.
“All this helped us, pushed us to find a solution and not to run away from our responsibilities. We had to trust each other and improve. Instead of separating us, we got closer, ”summarized Tatum on Sunday, after eliminating Miami.
This decisive seventh game at the Heat symbolized the collective momentum of the Celtics, since the “Jay-Jay” scored 24 points each and Smart, who claimed assists, had, adding 20 “pawns”. Between them, they concentrated 75% of the team’s scoring, to finally reach the last step of the championship, after two failures in the Eastern Conference final, in 2018 against Cleveland, and in 2020 against Miami.
“These setbacks have helped us to progress. We learned, and once we found ourselves in the same situation, we knew how to respond in a different way, ”explained Tatum, a winger with a suave shoot, who wore on his forearm, an armband flocked with the number 24 of Kobe Bryant, his idol, from whom he wanted to draw inspiration for this decisive N.7 match.
A Celtic fan of a former Lakers player? Sacrilege, as the rivalry is immense between the two enemy clubs! Unless it’s for a cause as good as bringing back a record 18th league title and regaining the lead over Los Angeles, which had joined Boston at the top of the charts with a 17th coronation in 2020.
Together, the “Jay-Jays” can write their own story in green letters, as did before them illustrious veterans, Bob Cousy, Bill Russell, John Havlicek, Larry Bird, Kevin McHale and other Paul Pierce…
None of these legends made it to the top alone, and all has not been smooth sailing. Cousy regretted many years after “not having done more” to support Russell in his fight against racism, Bird and McHale were far from having a chemistry, but all were working for the same ultimate goal on the floor .
“Why wait ? The talent is there, the work ethic is there, there is a chance for everyone to be a better leader. Go ahead, grab it,” Udoka told them indirectly when he took office last summer.
