Callahan: Celtics’ championship parade brings out the best in Boston

You wanted this?

You wanted Boston?

This town, this team, the fight and fabric stitched in between.

How’d that go for you, Miami?

What about you, Cleveland?

Anything to say now, Indiana or Dallas?

Final score: three wins, sixteen losses and one long Friday morning watching the best team in basketball celebrate with the greatest sports city in America, together again.

And what a celebration, what a parade, it was.

A coronation and graduation forged into an hour-long Celtics party for forever. Deafening cheers, chants and thanks from more than a million fans screaming from the bottom of their lungs and sporting souls. Championship joy abounding from the Garden to Back Bay and beyond.

If you’ve ever wondered what it sounds like, what it feels like, to stand at the center of a Celtics win after a buzzer-beater or game-winning shot, Friday was it — for sixty minutes straight.

This was Boston at its best.

A town that’s got your back. A town that doesn’t give up. A town of sports and history that recognizes the moments when the two intersect, and basks in them.

Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown are champions now. Over the last seven years, we watched them grow, watched greatness grow, in the Garden; superstars learning to walk, stumble and then run to a title.

There is nothing better, nor more gratifying in sports. That is, except the parade that follows.

A reason to skip work, day drink and dance. To celebrate your franchise players up close, toss a basketball toward them hope they might sign. And sign they did, for the little genius who duck-taped a sharpie to his ball and flung it to different duck boats Friday.

Joe Mazzulla was the first to sign, the head of the parade and once much-maligned coach of the Celtics. But where are his critics now?

Pulling apart every post-game quote with a bizarre reference? Wondering when he might take that timeout? No, they’re quiet; staring at the fact a 35-year-old cultivated buy-in from two of the NBA’s biggest superstars and a roster with six total all-stars on it, then led them to a title.

Not that Mazzulla is any less of his zany self. A day or two after walking the Larry O’Brien trophy around the North End (perhaps, not coincidentally, home to the second-most famous scene from “The Town,” his favorite movie) Mazzulla leapt onto the roof of a duck boat, then later out a window of that same duck boat and finally back into the boat — all on a torn meniscus.

He appears unbreakable. Just like his team.

Over four playoff rounds, Tatum and Brown relentlessly barreled into the paint for layups or kickouts to open 3-point shots; Jrue Holiday and Derrick White picked pockets on defense; Al Horford rained 3s, the poison all of Boston’s opponents picked to swallow, and died by — in the case of Indiana.

Now all of the Celtics, including the hobbled Kristaps Porzings, draped in his native Latvian flag for most of Friday’s duck-boat ride, are champions.

The 2023-24 Celtics will live forever, like the memories they brought forth.

The Boston Celtics’ victory parade proceeds through downtown Boston to celebrate the team winning their 18th NBA championship on June 21, 2024 in BOSTON, MA. (Photo by Sophie Park/MediaNews Group/Boston Herald)

“Let’s go Cel-tics!” echoed for two months of playoff games inside the Garden.

“Let’s go Cel-tics!” echoed across Park Street and Boylston on Friday.

Was that loud enough for you, Kyrie?

Celtics faithful raised a few chants for him, too, but we’ll skip them. Friday was not about the bitter past, but the euphoria of the present and possibly future. Boston can simply run it back with this roster and expect to be favorites again.

Fans, and even owner Wyc Grousbeck, hinted at Banner 19 on Friday.

But, how about those signs?

Midway through the parade, one read: “Jrue Holiday is my hall pass.”

The woman holding that one was no younger than 62.

“Luka’s playing XBox right now, but this is better,” another sign read.

That made Mazzulla smile. He pointed at it, just as the parade began.

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Editorial: Thank you, Celtics!

Another sign hit the Mavericks star right in his soft spot: “Luka would be complaining about the traffic.”

Down near Copley Square, a young woman raised another saying she’d flown in for Spain to attend the parade. To see the Celtics, her team and ours.

All around her, the city ran green. It exuded joy, togetherness and fight. Fans bent over balconies, hung on light poles and street signs, stood on rooftops and bus stops.

The city of champions at its title best.

Thanks to the Celtics, the greatest team in basketball once again.

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