In the face of adversity, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown announced their arrival. When injuries sidelined Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward, the Boston Celtics didn't stumble. Instead, their burgeoning wings, one, a rookie, the other in his second season in the Association, led a Cinderella-like run. They came within minutes of reaching the NBA Finals.
That planted the seeds that sprouted into five Eastern Conference Finals appearances in nine years. With Tatum and Brown at the helm, those trips felt like an annual tradition.
As these two grew together, there were heavy doses of promise and heartbreak. It feels like their run should have ended with more championships. That's how you know they spoiled a fan base.
While leading the NBA's most storied franchise, they were the driving force, propelling one of the most successful eras in team history.
The Jays finished with a 332-167 record in the regular season; that's a 66.5 winning percentage. They went 73-48 in the playoffs, emerging victorious 60.3 percent of the time. It translated to 16 playoff series wins and the chance to enjoy the view from the NBA summit.
From battle scars to a breakthrough: Tatum and Brown propel Celtics to Banner 18
Together, they immediately assuaged any fears that surfaced after the toxic ending of Irving's tenure in Boston. In 2022, after engineering the most impressive in-season turnaround in NBA history, a tandem still years away from entering their primes took the team from 11th in the East in January, not even qualifying for the play-in tournament, to a best-of-seven with the Larry O'Brien Trophy on the line.
The championship seasoning of the Golden State Warriors prevailed, but it was clear that the Celtics could go all-in on trying to reach the mountaintop by building around a fire-breathing star and one as cold as ice.
There were more heartbreaks to come. This author will never forget the electricity pulsating through TD Garden before Game 7 of the 2023 Eastern Conference Finals against the Miami Heat. The same goes for seeing how quickly the air came out of the balloon when Tatum injured his ankle when the matchup began.
That turbulent playoff run emboldened them and the organization. A year later, with a reconfigured core, they broke through. After all the calls to break them up before then, it was a chance to celebrate what they had accomplished and soak in the vindication that came with it. With one star 26 and the other 27, there was no better entrance into their primes.
An arch that allows for such patience, where one gets to witness the euphoric highs and agonizing lows of a years-long championship voyage, will become increasingly rare under this parity-promoting collective bargaining agreement. It's another reason to appreciate how special their run was.
Tatum and Brown delivered an unforgettable, increasingly rare moment in time
It's hard to believe their last two chapters involved squandering a pair of 20-point second-half leads at home to the New York Knicks, seeing a 3-1 series edge over the Philadelphia 76ers slip away, and Tatum tearing his Achilles.
However, those also captured how difficult it is to win at the highest level and the fragility of even the best-laid plans, like spending what it took to keep a title team intact.
Understandably, this era didn't end with more championships and Tatum and Brown standing side by side throughout their shared time in the league. They still set the gold standard for teammates at the top of a hierarchy during their time together.
They pushed through the noise and repeatedly won at a remarkably high level that was easy to take for granted. While there was hope for more, their partnership's success was unrivaled.
And if staying together next season was going to result in the movie ending on a sour note, it was better for it to fade to black now. Tatum and Brown left an indelible mark on Boston, the NBA, and the league's original monarchy. They're the reasons no one on the Celtics will wear No. 7 or No. 0 again. Like the championship banner they raised to the TD Garden rafters, those will take their rightful place high above the parquet. As a permanent reminder of what these two delivered in the last nine years, it's only fitting that those numbers are next to each other when the era of the Jays becomes immortal.
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