Jaylen Brown took home some extra hardware from TD Garden on Monday night.
Following the Boston Celtics’ series-clinching triumph against the Dallas Mavericks, Brown was voted NBA Finals MVP. This is the franchise’s first championship since 2008 and the 18th overall.
Though all eyes were on Celtics star Jayson Tatum entering the Finals, and properly so, Brown stood out against the Mavericks. He averaged 20.8 points, 5.4 rebounds, and five assists per game while shooting 44% from the floor, and was a constant force in their 4-1 series victory.
Brown had 21 points, eight rebounds, and six assists in the 106-88 victory over the Mavericks on Monday night. He went 7-of-23 from the field and made two three-pointers in the win. Brown, whom the Celtics selected with the third overall pick in 2016 out of Cal, averaged 23 points and 5.5 rebounds per game this season while earning his third All-Star nomination. The 27-year-old recently completed the first year of a five-year, $286 million contract with the Celtics.
That provided him an advantage against Tatum, who came into Monday’s game trailing Brown. He scored more than 20 points in only one of the Celtics’ first four games of the series, a powerful 31-point performance in Game 3 against Dallas. Despite his poor start, Tatum finished with a nearly 30-point triple-double in Game 5 on Monday. He scored 31 points, went 11-for-24 from the field, and had 11 assists and eight rebounds. It was by far his greatest game in the Finals, and while late, it came at the perfect time to prevent the series from returning to Dallas for Game 6. It simply wasn’t enough to earn the MVP title.
In the Finals, the Celtics dominated the Mavericks, just as they had throughout the series. They went out to a 3-0 lead following a strong start in Boston. The Celtics had won 10 consecutive games, starting with Game 3 of their second round series against the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Boston’s only slip in the Finals was in Game 4, when Luke Dončić and the Mavericks finally showed up. The Mavericks cruised to a wild 38-point victory in Dallas to avoid a series sweep, the third-largest win in Finals history.
However, this simply postponed the inevitable. On Monday night, the Celtics easily defeated the Mavericks and strolled to victory at TD Garden. This awarded them their first title in 16 years.