Former Duke basketball star Jayson Tatum wins his first NBA title as Celtics defeat Dallas 4-1

Boston closes out the Dallas Mavericks for 18th NBA Title, giving former Duke star Jayson Tatum his first ring.

On Monday evening, a new NBA champion was crowned.

It’s from a familiar franchise, too. The Boston Celtics, led by former Duke star [autotag]Jayson Tatum[/autotag], won their 18th NBA title after dismantling [autotag]Kyrie Irving[/autotag], Luka Doncic, [autotag]Dereck Lively II[/autotag], and the Dallas Mavericks 106-88 to wrap up a 4-1 series victory in front of a packed TD Garden crowd in Boston.

The Celtics entered the night with a massive chip on their shoulder after getting wrecked by the Mavericks down in Dallas for Game 4. The Mavericks blasted the Celtics by 40 points on Friday night to keep the series alive, and the Celtics came out ready to play and end the series. The Celtics closed the first quarter of Game 5 on a 9-0 run and never looked back.

For Tatum, years of failures and media slander now become noise. He’s cemented himself in basketball history as one of the stars of a championship-winning team for one of the sport’s most prestigious franchises.

Tatum joins a small list of seven other former Duke players to win an NBA title. Jack White was the most recent in 2023 as a member of the Denver Nuggets.

The former No. 3 pick out of Duke is now an NBA champion, a four-time All-NBA selection, and a five-time All-Star. On top of his championship, he is now set for a record-setting contract extension to make him the league’s highest-paid player. And for a few weeks, he’ll rest and then prepare himself to get ready to play in the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris with Team USA.