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Even after the Boston Celtics won their NBA-best 18th NBA championship by beating the Dallas Mavericks in five games in the 2024 NBA Finals, there are still plenty of doubters and haters. Many have said the Celtics had a cakewalk through the Eastern Conference playoffs because their opponents were never at full strength.
Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown finally won an NBA championship after years of coming so close. Those haters are still finding ways to downplay the success of Boston’s two stars and discredit Boston’s first NBA title since 2008.
Former Celtics star and two-time champion Cedric Maxwell lashed out at those haters during an episode of his “Cedric Maxwell Podcast.” Maxwell, the MVP of the 1981 NBA Finals, didn’t mince words when addressing those criticizing the Celtics.
Cedric Maxwell Pulls No Punches With Boston Celtics Haters
Maxwell spent the first eight seasons of his 11-year NBA career with the Celtics, who made him a first-round pick in the 1977 NBA Draft. In just his second NBA season, Maxwell averaged 19.0 points and 9.9 rebounds and led the league in field-goal percentage.
Even when the Celtics brough Larry Bird on as a rookie for the 1979-80 season, Maxwell still put up 16.9 points and 8.8 rebounds. The following season, the Celtics won the first of their three titles of the decade, and Maxwell was named the MVP of the 1981 Finals after the Celtics knocked off the Houston Rockets.
Maxwell still remains close with the Celtics, working as a radio analyst for the team. When talking about Boston’s success during the 2023-24 season, he addressed those still hating and doubting the current version of the Celtics.
“They can’t say anything when they give you a ring,” Maxwell said. “Even now, when you say 16-3 (Boston’s postseason record), the first thing people say is what happened when they played Miami? There was no Jimmy Butler. What happened when they played Cleveland? Donovan (Mitchell) was out. What happened when they played Indiana? (Tyrese) Haliburton wasn’t playing.
“Then, when they played Dallas, both teams were healthy. Then (Kristaps) Porzingis gets hurt. You can’t hate on the Celtics for what they did. If you hate on them, then you don’t know (expletive) about basketball.”
Maxwell Says It’s Nice To Finally Have the Weight Off the Celtics’ Shoulders
Tatum and Brown have been playing together since Tatum’s rookie season in 2017-18. During that stretch, the Celtics reached the conference finals six times but never had anything to show for it until their 2024 title.
There was plenty of talk about how Boston’s two stars couldn’t play with each other and how they both failed to step up in the spotlight. Tatum and Brown put an end to those comments with their emphatic win over the Mavs in the championship round.
Maxwell said if the Celtics hasn’t come away with Banner 18 this season, things could have gotten pretty ugly in Boston.
“It would’ve been absolutely a bummer if the Celtics had lost,’ he said. “Oh, my God. I can’t even imagine about how we’d be doing this interview, how (radio host) Michael Felger and those people would have been going off.”
Maxwell and Celtics fans no longer have to worry about that, and with Boston’s core locked up for the next several years, the Celtics are in pretty good shape to add to their banner collection.
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