Banner 17 helps Celtics turn back the clock

I didn't realize how special this Boston Celtics' championship would be until I talked to my brother, Tom, on the phone Tuesday night.
We had just finished playing in our baseball game and were on our way out to grab a drink and watch the fourth quarter when my cell phone started buzzing on my dashboard. Tom and I both knew that Boston was cruising to victory in the second half, up by more than 20 points at halftime, thanks to a teammate's constant phone updates in the dugout. Still, we both wanted to watch the end of the game. And then a thought hit me square in the face -- Tom's only 24 years old. He was about to see something that he doesn't remember seeing in his lifetime, and he wanted to make sure that I was on the way to the bar to meet him.
I grew up on the Celtics in the 1980s, watching Boston win titles in 1981, 1984 and 1986. I was only 2 when the Celtics closed out the Houston Rockets in '81, not old enough to remember anything, but I know for a fact that I was planted in front of a television when Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Robert Parrish and the rest of The Big Three's supporting cast won their next two championships. I remember the Memorial Day Massacre in '84, McHale's clothesline on Kurt Rambis and Boston's comeback in the series. I remember Boston's dominance of Houston in '86, the year that the Celtics went 40-1 in the Boston Garden during the regular season and assembled what could have been the greatest team in league history. Boston played in The Finals five times before I turned 8. It was something that everyone took for granted then, times that never seemed like they were going to end as long as Bird was healthy.
Of course, over time, The Big Three grew old, Len Bias died before ever playing a game in Boston and the Celtics became an afterthought during the Chicago Bulls' dominance in the 1990s and San Antonio's excellence during the 2000s. All of that changed in the blink of an eye on Tuesday, a 131-92 destruction of the Los Angeles Lakers that provided an anticlimactic end to what could have been a very tense time in Boston had the Celtics lost Game 6.
They say that championship teams need a lot of things to go right in order for them to succeed. Let's list a few.
--Kevin Garnett woke up just in time in Game 6 with a 26-point, 14-rebound double-double. His career exorcism is complete, 13 years of failure erased with one championship ring.
--Rajon Rondo, a player who I thought would hold the Celtics back due to his inexperience and inability to make key jump shots, matured into a point guard who posted 21 points, eight assists, seven rebounds and six steals in a clinching game.
--Paul Pierce made sure that his No. 34 wouldn't be the only one hanging in the TD Banknorth Garden rafters (minus the tragically short life of Reggie Lewis) without a championship ring when his career is over. His Finals MVP performance cemented his place with The Big Three, John Havlicek, Bill Russell, Bob Cousy and all the rest as one of the greatest Celtics of them all.
--Kobe Bryant turned in a gutless performance in the face of intense defensive pressure from the Celtics. He was 7-for-22 in the series' final contest, providing a fitting end to a thoroughly unimpressive effort in six games. Bryant proved ill-equipped to lead a team to a championship on his own, and that Game 4 meltdown in which the Lakers lost a 24-point lead is a stain that he will never erase from his resume.
This is a day that I never thought I would see again, a day not even in the conversation through all the bad draft picks (Jerome Moiso, Eric Montross, the white Michael Smith, Kedrick Brown, the lost lotteries that didn't bring Tim Duncan, Greg Oden or Kevin Durant), horrific trades (Vin Baker, Sebastian Telfair, Kenny Anderson) and terrible leadership (Rick Pitino, Chris Wallace). It's a day that was 22 years in the making, bringing us all back to a time when Boston won its 16th championship in 40 seasons of NBA basketball, the most dominant franchise in any sport anywhere. It's a moment that reminds Celtics' fans of the winning tradition that Red Auerbach built, a pattern of success that blurred racial, cultural and traditional lines of division. It's a championship that I can share with my brother and so many people like him who don't remember when Boston was the capital of the basketball world. Words can't describe how good it feels to be back in that place again.