Boston’s brilliant technocrats micromanaged their way to the NBA title

This Celtics team, while not quite as luminously talented as peak Steph Curry Golden State, have much of their predecessors' machine-like air of inevitability

A blizzard of confetti across the parquet floor at TD Garden; the words Jaylen Brown finals MVP" no longer a punchline used to taunt the Massachusetts basketball faithful but solid, unarguable reality; the Larry O'Brien trophy in the hands of Celtics owner Wyc Grousbeck; and Boston confirmed, with their 18th championship, as the most successful franchise in NBA history.

Were these the worst NBA finals - for neutrals, at least - in recent memory though? A 4-1 scoreline certainly suggests so, and the manner of the Mavericks' capitulation on Monday night - gamely keeping pace for the first 10 minutes of the first quarter before Boston made the title all but secure by half-time - applied a weak punctuation mark to what had been a rousing Dallas effort in Game 4. In the end, Kyrie Irving failed to show up on the court that once sang his name, the Mavericks supporting cast reverted to mediocre type, and the velvet hands and magic buttocks (and dodgy knee, and injured chest) of Luka Doni simply had nothing left to give against a Boston outfit that was too smooth, too strong, too powerful at both ends of the court. With this 18th title, after 16 Larry O'Brien-less years, the Celtics now move ahead of their historic rivals the Lakers in the NBA's all-time championship tally.