Boston kept faith when hard times hit. Now they’re two wins from a title

The season was only a dozen games old when Boston Celtics president of basketball operations Brad Stevens swatted away rumors that the team was looking to trade its forward, Jaylen Brown. Those rumors persisted into January, as the team entered the new year with an under .500 record, and concerns mounted over whether Brown and his fellow all-star, Jayson Tatum, could co-exist.

On Wednesday night, as the Celtics bested the Golden State Warriors 116-100 to take a 2-1 lead in the NBA finals, those trade rumors felt prehistoric – or at least as dated as the original Jurassic Park.

Brown sparked the Celtics early, igniting his team and the crowd with 17 first-quarter points. Marcus Smart, the league’s defensive player of the year and himself the subject of erstwhile trade chatter, quelled any Golden State threat with timely buckets. Tatum shook off a slow start and hit his stride late, finishing off the Warriors with 15 points in the second half. The trio combined for 77 points, serving as Boston’s best shotmakers and playmakers, providing class and energy that the team lacked in game two, and vindicating the front office’s decision to keep its core together.

“For us, it was just getting in the paint and making the right play,” said Smart. “We took what they gave us, and that was it.”

It was the first NBA finals game on Boston’s parquet court since 2010, and a star of that Celtics’ team, Paul Pierce, was on hand Wednesday, sitting courtside in a resplendent green and white leather jacket. The rank-and-file also made their presence known, particularly to the Warriors’s Draymond Green.

After submitting a true heel’s performance in Game 2, Green received a villain’s welcome from the more than 19,000 in attendance at TD