The Boston Celtics are champions for the first time in 16 years following a 106-88 victory over the Dallas Mavericks at TD Garden in Game 5 of the 2024 NBA Finals on Monday night.

It was just the second title for the Celtics in the 21 century, but it was their 18th, all-time, which is the new NBA record, surpassing the rival Lakers by one Larry O’Brien Trophy.

Forward Jayson Tatum led the way with 31 points, while Jaylen Brown added 21 and was voted NBA Finals MVP.

Boston had taken a commanding 3-0 lead in the series but was denied a sweep last Thursday night when the Mavericks won going away, by a score of 122-84 at American Airlines Center.

A title seemed inevitable, however, and the Celtics left little doubt back home on Monday night, as they quickly opened up a 10-point lead in the first quarter and went into the locker room at halftime with a 67-46 advantage before a celebratory home crowd of over 19,000.

Actually, an NBA title seemed inevitable throughout the 2023/2024 regular season; Boston won 64 games and the Atlantic Division by a sizable margin over the New York Knicks, who finished with 50 regular-season wins and entered the postseason as the second seed in the Eastern Conference.

The Celtics were the top seed, overall, as no team in the Western Conference finished with even 60 victories.

Boston only needed 10 games to dispatch both the Heat and Cavaliers in the first two rounds of the playoffs before sweeping the sixth-seeded Pacers in the Eastern Conference Finals.

The Mavericks were a bit of a surprise representative of the Western Conference, but then again, maybe not.

Dallas won 50 regular-season games in the Southwest Division. However, since the NBA seeds teams by record, the Mavericks began the postseason as the fifth seed in the Western Conference.

No problem.

Led by a dynamic backcourt of Kyrie Irving and Luka Doncic, the regular-season scoring champion, Dallas defeated the fourth-seeded Clippers in six games in the first round before using that many to upset the top-seeded Thunder in the second round. Dallas then beat the Timberwolves in five games to clinch its third trip to the NBA Finals in franchise history and first since winning its only title in 2011.

There would not be a second. The Celtics played like a team of destiny all throughout the 2023/2024 campaign, and now Tatum and Brown get to join the likes of Bill Russell, Larry Bird and Paul Pierce as basketball immortals in the city of Boston.