The Celtics raise the No. 18 championship banner as franchise greats look on

BOSTON – It took 16 years, but the Boston Celtics officially raised banner No. 18 to the TD Garden Rafters on Tuesday night as the franchise celebrated its record-setting 18th NBA championship before its season opener against its Atlantic Division rival, the New York Knicks, in the first game of the 2024-25 NBA season.

“I can honestly say to the best fans in the world,” Jayson Tatum said with a smile, “let’s do it again.”

After years of playoff disappointment and heartache, Boston swept the league last season, winning 64 games in the regular season before easily sailing through the playoffs and going 16-3 to win the organization's first title since 2008.

And after Celtics owner Wyc Grousbeck counted down the team's successes, including a 37-4 win at home in the regular season, to the delight of the sellout crowd, he smiled and said they were “pretty good.”

“In a storied history that includes 23 retired jerseys,” said NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, “this special Celtics team is now making a story of its own as we enter the 79th season of the NBA.”

As part of this celebrated history of the Celtics franchise, several legends from the team's past were in attendance – from Bob Cousy, who won six of those titles in the NBA's first seasons; to Cedric Maxwell, who won an NBA Finals MVP award and two titles; to the anchors of the last team to win a title here: Ray Allen, Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce, back together and celebrating being the second-to-last Celtics team to win hardware.

During the introductions of the coaches and players, the crowd exploded several times – particularly for former coach and current president of basketball operations Brad Stevens; trainer Joe Mazzulla, who kissed the ground as he walked out to collect his ring from Silver; Kristaps Porzingis, who will be out for at least the next few months as he recovers from offseason ankle surgery; and Jaylen Brown and Tatum, the team's two stars most recently introduced.

Then, with the rings handed out, the team focused on the task at hand: a highly anticipated showdown with New York, a team hoping to do this season what the Celtics did last year – and the summer has spent two big names in Mikal Bridges and Karl-Anthony Towns working together to accomplish just that.

“I mean, whenever a team wins the championship, everyone analyzes how they did it, what their personnel was like, what their plan was and so on,” Brunson said Tuesday morning after the Knicks held their morning shootaround at TD Garden had. “And so I don’t want to speak for the rest of the league, but a lot of people saw how successful they were with their offense and their five-outs and their schemes and whatever. And so it may not be a carbon copy, but everyone is going to want to somehow get used to the new way of basketball every time someone wins this way.