Before Jayson Tatum, Jrue Holiday and Derrick White helped Team USA win the gold medal during the 2024 Olympics in Paris, France, the Boston Celtics were able to make easy work of superstar duo Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving in the NBA Finals, winning the series in five games against the Dallas Mavericks.
Even though the Mavericks were clearly the best team to come out of the Western Conference after they got through every round of the NBA playoffs while being the underdog, Dallas couldn’t overcome a Celtics team that prided itself on both ends of the basketball floor and was stacked from top to bottom.
Despite beating the Mavericks in five games and winning the team’s NBA record 18th title, former NBA star Gilbert Arenas wasn’t convinced Boston was playing championship basketball in the Finals, as he told Mike Miller and Udonis Haslem on The OGs podcast.
“They were the better team, hands down,” Arenas said. “Did they play championship basketball? No.”
Gilbert Arenas says the Celtics didn’t play championship-level basketball and only won the Finals because they were a better team than the Mavericks
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@theOGsShow / https://t.co/dO0GJJSqfJ) pic.twitter.com/9suJmIfnGR
— NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) August 13, 2024
Arenas isn’t one to shy away from a bold take, and he definitely gave one here, as it is a stretch to say that the Celtics, who dominated the competition in the Eastern Conference playoffs and won a league-best 64 games during the NBA regular season wasn’t playing championship basketball.
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter what Arenas says, as the Celtics are reigning champions regardless of his opinion and could be on the verge of something special if this team can continue to play consistently well in the years to come, with Tatum and Jaylen Brown leading the way.
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