'We Did It!': Celtics Win 18th NBA Championship: See Parade Details

BOSTON, MA — On a team defined by championships, in a city well-worn with crowning parades, it was always going to take a title for Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum to ascend to the stratosphere they have been collectively climbing toward ever since first becoming teammates seven years ago.

On Monday night — 16 years to the day after a Celtics team led by Ray Allen, Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce celebrated a championship on the fabled parquet — the next generation of Celtics legends enjoyed their ultimate moment of validation with a 106-88 victory against the Dallas Mavericks for the 18th banner in franchise history.

"I just kept saying: 'Wow!'" Tatum said in his postgame news conference. "These last seven years have been a roller coaster — up and down. I had to listen to all the (expletive) people were saying about me.

"And tonight it was worth it."

Tatum scored 31 points with 11 assists and eight rebounds and Brown scored 21 points with eight rebounds and six assists in winning the NBA Finals Bill Russell MVP award as the two still-very-young stars led a Celtics team that brought together a collection of immense talent that set aside some of their own personal glory for one common goal that will define them in NBA history.

"We learned from all our mistakes," Brown said. "All of our adversity has made us stronger. All season, you could see it. We started from the jump. We made all the sacrifices. We played both ends of the ball at a high level. We didn't skip any steps. And this was the result.

"All of those experiences led to here. All of those moments when we came up short — I felt like we let the city down, felt like we let ourselves down. All of that is how we get to this moment."

The championship moments on Monday included Kristaps Porzingis fighting through a dislocated ankle tendon injury that will require offseason surgery for 16 impactful minutes, Derrick White playing through a bloody fall that chipped his front tooth for 14 points and eight rebounds, Jrue Holiday scoring 15 points with 11 rebounds while playing 43 minutes and shutting down former Celtic-turned-Boston-villian Kyrie Irving, and Payton Pritchard hitting yet another logo bomb to effectively start the countdown to history as the horn sounded to end the first half.

It also included 38-year-old Al Horford — who entered the night having played the second most NBA playoff games in league history for a player who had not won a title — capping his second stint in Boston with the ultimate reward as he recalled what then-Celtics President of Basketball Operations Danny Ainge told him when recruiting him as a free agent way back in 2016.

"He said you can win championships in many places," Horford said. "But there is nothing like winning in Boston. Nothing like winning as a Celtic. And that stuck with me from that meeting. I was like, man, I'm trying to be great. The fact that it has come, and it has happened, JT and JB stepping up and leading us, it's special."

Now it's time for the whole city, the region, and all the fans who rose to their feet cheering and often sunk with every step forward and those punishing steps back with this current iteration of a storied franchise, to party.

The championship parade is set for Friday with the duck boats taking off from TD Garden at 11 a.m. and traveling through Boston to City Hall Plaza and past Boston Common before ending at the Hynes Convention Center. Temperatures are expected to be near 90 degrees.

"It's a surreal feeling," Tatum said on the court following the Game 5 victory as confetti rained down on his head. "We did it.

"We did it! Oh my God, we did it!"

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. X/Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)