After the Celtics’ championship-clinching triumph on Monday night, Jayson Tatum took a time to collect his thoughts. He was overtaken with pleasure as he prepared to become an NBA champion for the first time in his career, and there was only one person he wanted to see: his young son, Deuce.

 

Tatum was reunited with his six-year-old immediately as confetti began to descend from the TD Garden rafters, where a 2024 Boston Celtics NBA Champions banner will soon be displayed. Deuce hugged his father while Tatum hunched over.

 

Tatum celebrated by raising Deuce into the air and hugging him tightly, shouting, “We did it!”.

Tatum and his son are inseparable, and Deuce stayed with him on the floor for the remainder of the celebration. When Tatum entered the podium, he was questioned about his emotional conversation with his kid.

“He told me that I was the best in the world. I said, ‘You’re damn right I am,’” said Tatum.

This championship has been seven years in the making for Tatum, who was drafted third overall by the Celtics in 2017. He’s developed into a star player, bringing home All-NBA First Team honors in each of the last three seasons, but a title had eluded him until Monday night.

Jayson Tatum lifts the Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy alongside his son, Jayson Christopher Tatum Jr., following Boston’s 106-88 victory over the Dallas Mavericks.ELSA | GETTY IMAGESTatum and the Celtics have always come close, including a trip to the Finals two years ago, where they were defeated by the Golden State Warriors. Tatum and his Celtics teammates have discussed using that loss, as well as last season’s loss to the Miami Heat in the East Finals, as motivation to go over the hump. It finally paid off on Monday night.”The sacrifice was worthwhile. I’m grateful to having been in the positions I was while growing up. Thankful for my mother. Thank you, dad, for exposing me to basketball. My grandmother, who helped raise me. “All my friends and family who have supported me, every coach, and every teammate that I’ve had,” an ecstatic Tatum stated Monday.

“There’s a lot of people that have had a hand in the success of Jayson Tatum. So I guess in this moment, I’m just very thankful for everybody that supported me in the highest of moments and in the lowest of moments. I’m very, very appreciative of that,” he added.

“It’s a hell of a feeling,” Tatum said of being an NBA champ. “I dreamed about what it would be like, but this is 10 times better.”

Best of all, he got to share the special moment with his son.