Joe Mazzulla has tried to avoid reflecting on the Celtics’ 2024 NBA championship since the team reconvened for training camp last month.
But before Boston tipped off its new season Tuesday night against the New York Knicks, it enjoyed one last well-deserved celebration.
The opening night festivities at TD Garden featured the hoisting of the Celtics’ 18th championship banner to the TD Garden rafters and the presentation of the team’s championship rings.
Players wore gold-accented warmup jackets with 18 Larry O’Brien Trophies down the left sleeve and “NBA Champions” emblazoned on the back.
“The Boston Celtics are now the winningest franchise in NBA history,” commissioner Adam Silver announced before presenting rings to Celtics co-owners Wyc Grousbeck, Steve Pagliuca and Bob Epstein.
The rings, designed by a small Grousbeck-led committee and produced by Jason of Beverly Hills, are covered in white and emerald diamonds and feature the motto “Whatever It Takes” on the side, along with several other nods to last season’s championship squad.
The crown of each ring is detachable, hiding a compartment that houses a piece of the Garden floor emblazoned with the final score of Boston’s Finals-clinching win over the Dallas Mavericks.
“The statistics don’t lie,” Grousbeck declared. “You’re looking at one of the finest teams ever assembled in the history of the NBA.”
Diamonds are forever
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— Boston Celtics (@celtics) October 22, 2024
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When it was Mazzulla’s turn to receive his ring, he knelt down and kissed the Garden parquet.
Despite his insistence on looking fo, the head coach doesn’t hide his reverence for Celtics history. Before the ceremony, Mazzulla paid his respects to those who helped the franchise hang its first 17 banners. Among those who were in attendance Tuesday: Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen and Bob Cousy.
“We’ve been entrusted with the tradition of this organization by the players, by other staff, by the front office, and have a responsibility and an ownership to the city and to the people that came before us,” Mazzulla said in his pregame news conference. “This job isn’t what it is if the people before us didn’t put the time and the effort into making it what it was. Because of them, we’re able to kind of go after stuff and be a part of this.
“It’s a sense of gratitude. Not only to the city and to the people that came before us. I think that moment is cooler than anything else instead of just watching what you’re a part of. It’s something so much bigger than one year or two years. It’s a lifestyle. I think the quote that Red (Auerbach) said, ‘The Celtics are a way of life,’ is true. And that’s something I don’t take lightly.”
Mazzulla would know. The Johnston, R.I., native was exposed to the Celtics mystique at an early age. Now, the 36-year-old is entering his third season as the C’s head coach, armed with a loaded roster that’s nearly identical to the one that steamrolled its way to the title last season.
“(I) love coming on Storrow (Drive) and just being grateful for the opportunity that I have to coach this team, to work with the guys and the staff and the players and the organization and you get to work for the Celtics,” Mazzulla said, reflecting on his drive to the arena ahead of Tuesday’s opener against the New York Knicks. “It’s the best city. It’s the best team. There’s no question about it. What’s better than that?”
These Celtics are trying to accomplish something that hasn’t been done by a Boston team since Auerbach was the general manager and Bill Russell was the player-coach: win back-to-back championships. The Celtics’ last successful title defense was in 1969.
Repeating has become increasingly difficult in the modern NBA, as each of the last five title-winners failed to even reach the conference finals the following season. The last team to win two straight championships was the 2017-18 Golden State Warriors.
“The goal is to do it every single year,” Mazzulla said. “That’s just the goal. But it’s focusing on the process of what goes into that. There’s a lot of decisions you have to make on a daily basis about how you’re going to compete at the highest level, and as long as you look at it from a process-oriented approach, I think it puts you in a position to go after that.”
Jayson Tatum was the final player to receive his ring.
“I can honestly say,” the Celtics superstar told the crowd, “to the best fans in the world, let’s do it again.”
