Jayson Tatum has recorded 31 points and 11 assists, as Boston Celtics locked up their league-record 18th championship with a 106-88 blowout of the Dallas Mavericks in Game Five of the NBA Finals.
Tatum also had eight rebounds, while Jaylen Brown added 21 points, eight boards and six assists for Boston, which celebrated the 16th anniversary of their most recent title by completing a 16-3 playoff run.
The Celtics knocked off Los Angeles Lakers in the 2008 Finals and those two teams previously shared the league record with 17 championships apiece.
Jrue Holiday had 15 points and 11 rebounds, and Derrick White chipped in 14 points, as Boston wrapped up the best-of-seven series on their second opportunity.
Luka Doncic paced the Mavericks with 28 points and 12 boards, but committed seven turnovers. Kyrie Irving finished with 15 points and nine assists for Dallas, and Josh Green netted 14 points.
After Dallas called a timeout with 3m 11s left in the second quarter, trailing by 11 points, Boston completely broke the game open.
The Celtics scored 17 of the next 24 points, six of them from Brown. Payton Pritchard capped the outburst in jaw-dropping fashion, canning a 49-foot heave from halfcourt at the buzzer to send Boston into the break with a 67-46 cushion.
Holiday's lay-up pushed the Celtics' lead to 78-52 with 9m 10s to go in the third quarter. Green then converted a putback and knocked down a three-pointer as part of a 10-2 run that got the Mavericks within 80-62.
Dallas later got the deficit down to 17, but Boston took an 86-67 lead into the fourth.
The Celtics were on top by at least 18 the rest of the way.
A three-point play from Tatum put the Celtics up 46-31 with 7m 08s remaining in the first half, but Dallas then took over down low. The Mavericks scored all their points in the paint during an 8-2 spurt to get within nine, before Al Horford stemmed the tide with a hard-nosed lay-up.
Horford's bucket came just before the Mavericks' timeout that preceded Boston's game-changing run.
Boston came to life in the final 1:39 of the first quarter, ripping off nine unanswered points to take a 28-18 lead into the second.
The Celtics wound up shooting 42.7 percent from the floor. Dallas shot 44.9 percent overall, but was outscored by 10 points at the foul-line and committed 13 turnovers to Boston' nine.
Reuters
