The Boston Celtics captured the 2024 NBA Championship last night, with a Game 5 victory over the Dallas Mavericks, a game they lead wire to wire. The scene here in Boston near TD Garden was raucous, with copious helicopters overhead and thousands of people in the streets for hours after the game. Now, the day after the excitement, let’s look at some numbers.
Coincidental Numbers
Yesterday’s date: 6/17
Boston’s primary area code: 617
Celtics’ margin of victory over the Mavericks in the clinching game: 18 points
Championships the Boston Celtics have now won: 18 (More than any other team)
Lauren Holiday Numbers
World Cups won by Lauren Holiday, outstanding soccer player who also happens to be married to Celtics point guard Jrue Holiday: 1 (2015)
Olympic gold medals won by Lauren Holiday: 2 (2008, 2012)
Number of women misidentified as Lauren Holiday by ESPN (on ABC)1, who, given the above, really, really ought to know better: 1
Absurd Numbers
Mavericks’ margin of victory over the Celtics in Game 4: 38 points
Ultimate value of that drubbing: Exactly 1 win; Alternately, nothing at all
Distance, in feet, of Payton Pritchard’s more than half-court three-point shot to end the first half2: 49
Number of teeth chipped by Celtics guard Derrick White while playing basketball, ostensibly a non-contact sport: At least 1. Possibly 2.
The Final Word
Number of big four (MLB, NBA, NHL, and NFL) championships for Boston since 2000: 13 (6 Super Bowls, 4 World Series, 2 NBA Championships, and 1 Stanley Cup)
Locales with a better claim than Boston to being the “City of Champions” this millennium: 0
Footnotes:
The aforementioned ridiculousness is archived here. ↩︎
And this ridiculousness is archived here. ↩︎
