This Celtics championship is for ... well, a few people come to mind - The Boston Globe (2024)

Wait. Just wait, and enjoy where we are, right now. Those questions will be discussed in due time. The answers aren’t coming immediately anyway.

This is not time to accelerate away from the championship vibes, joy, and afterglow, right through Friday’s parade, and straight into the to-do list for the offseason.

This is time to linger. This is time to bask, people.

Does sappiness seep in? Sentimentality? Obviously, if you truly care. The Celtics just won a championship that many among us weren’t sure we would see.

Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum needed to mature as players, and Joe Mazzulla as a coach. Before this season, the Celtics had made five trips to the conference finals and one to the Finals in Brown’s career. But one speed bump here, and a roadblock there, sent them crashing off course.

Monday night brought the culmination and the catharsis. No matter what happens over the remainder of their exceptional careers, Brown and Tatum will forever be known as champions.

If you care about the Celtics, truly care, that’s beyond meaningful, and it gets you right in your sports fan’s soul.

Permit that feeling to linger.

Here’s one way I’ve done so. In the hours after the Celtics collected their 18th banner and changed the conversation around their current stars, I’ve been thinking a little about the 2004 Red Sox.

Not “don’t let us win tonight” or “Red Sox fans have longed to hear it” or any of their legendary plot twists and ghosts exorcised along the way.

I’ve been thinking about how Red Sox fans anticipated their catharsis, with a thread on the Sons of Sam Horn website titled “Win It For …”

The concept was simple. Fans took to the thread to share who was in their hearts and on their minds as the Red Sox closed in on their first World Series title in 86 years.

Some mentioned Red Sox players past and present. Most mentioned relatives or close friends, some of whom hadn’t lived to see the Red Sox win a World Series.

From time to time as the Celtics got closer to clinching this title, a smattering of “Win It For …” posts would show up on social media. The sentiment endures.

And yet I’ve found it takes a little different shape after the victory is clinched. “Win It For …” morphs into gratitude for those who won it.

I’ve been thinking about the people for whom I am especially happy. Many — most, really — are with or on the periphery of the Celtics. A certain segment of fans mentioned here may sound like you. I hope it is you.

I’m happy it was won for …

Joe Mazzulla: So I got dry-roasted Monday night by the ruthless, hilarious Freezing Cold Takes Twitter account for writing last March, when the Celtics fell behind, 3-0, to the Heat, that he should be fired if the Celtics got swept.

I ate that heaping helping of crow with a mea culpa column months ago — right around when he started calling timeouts at necessary times — but the chilly take is worth digging up again, because it looks so impatient and short-sighted now.

Mazzulla did a fantastic job coaching the Celtics in the playoffs, and he’s going to have a championship ring to confirm it. He just got better and more comfortable as the season went on.

I should have known that someone Brad Stevens had such faith in was worth waiting for.

Al Horford: Of course, Al Horford. After 17 seasons and 186 playoff games — that’s 2¼ seasons! — he’s finally an NBA champion.

On a roster full of proud fathers, Horford is the de facto team dad, the veteran who is deeply respected and good-naturedly teased.

He is the quintessential Celtic in all the most admirable ways.

Jrue Holiday and Derrick White: How many selfless, malleable, sharpshooting, intelligent, defensively ferocious guards who care only about winning are there in the league?

If you want to tell me there are two and the Celtics have both, I’ll believe you.

Mike Gorman: The easygoing television voice of the Celtics for more than four decades goes out with a championship.

And don’t tell me you haven’t thought of how much Tommy Heinsohn would have adored this team.

Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown: They’ve long been exceptional individually, they solved how to thrive within a team concept, and now they are forever linked as champions.

This is the deserved payoff for their hard work and resilience, and now that that anvil is off their backs, the league is officially on notice.

And you know what? More than anything, this is for those who believed in them.

It’s for those who didn’t want to trade Tatum for Anthony Davis, or Brown for Kawhi Leonard, Jimmy Butler, Paul George, or every other high-end veteran forward up to and including Adrian Dantley.

It’s for those who were patient and resolute, who suffered and endured the growing pains and achingly frustrating losses, but who believed that with the right cast around them, Tatum and Brown could become … exactly what they have become.

This is for those who don’t confuse sports-radio takes with their own thoughts, those who find extra satisfaction in watching young players — your homegrown players — blossom into champions, those who never once used the phrase “blow it up.”

This is for those who did not waver. Is this for you? I hope it is.

The Celtics are champions again, and yet also for the first time in a long time. Their journey to this moment could not have been more fulfilling.

Stay in it, why don’t you, as long as you can.

Chad Finn can be reached at chad.finn@globe.com. Follow him @GlobeChadFinn.