NBA players usually wait until they are 27 years old and at the height of their abilities to win a championship with their team. Numerous factors contribute to the length of time and perseverance needed before even the most well-known players in the league reach the NBA’s pinnacle.

The process of maturation is one of them. Even the greatest players in history have gone through growing pains that have contributed to their failures before they succeed and win the Larry O’Brien Trophy, such as Michael Jordan’s need to have greater faith in his teammates and LeBron James’s disappearance in the 2011 Finals against the Dallas Mavericks.

In their first six years together, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown led the Boston Celtics to at least four Eastern Conference Finals before the start of this season. This involves getting within two victories in 2022 of hoisting Banner 18 above the TD Garden rafters.

However, this is the first season that Tatum, the other member of Boston’s great wing duo, is sharing the court with his younger brother, who is 27 years old.

The Celtics’ difficulties guarding the parquet court during the previous postseason were one of the harsh costs of the maturation process, even though the franchise is optimistic it helps finish this year’s title campaign.

Boston had a five and six record in the 2023 playoffs at home, losing the series opener against the Philadelphia 76ers in the following round and failing to shut out an Atlanta Hawks club without Dejounte Murray in Game 5. Then, in the Eastern Conference Finals, the C’s lost three of their four home games to the Miami Heat.

Tatum therefore openly discussed if he thought the Celtics’ ability to defeat the Heat in five games was evidence of their development after unleashing a haymaker in their 118-84 victory at TD Garden against the same team that dashed their aspirations of winning the championship the previous year.

“That is the proper way for it to be,” said the five-time All-Star. “The next season, which we are doing this year, is where we should be using what we have learned from our failures and what we could have done better. because we’re attempting to get a different result than we did the previous year.”

“We still have tests to go through throughout this playoff season, especially now that KP is out, but I think we’re up to the challenge; I think I’m up to the challenge, and I’m excited about that,” Brown said in the locker room. Thus, although we haven’t graduated yet, we are graduating.