Jrue Vacation describes Celtics love in Boston: “Earlier than successful, I may go locations”

For Jrue Vacation, strolling round Boston has been a totally completely different expertise since he gained an NBA championship as a member of the Boston Celtics.

“Earlier than successful, I may go locations,” Vacation stated with a smile, at an occasion celebrating a grand opening of a brand new Elevating Cane’s. “It will be sort of superb strolling round. Now, all over the place I’m going, there’s at all times —”

Simply as he was starting to explain the inflow of consideration he’s acquired from Celtics followers since Banner 18 was secured in June, one other Boston sports activities legend walked into the restaurant: Corridor of Fame Crimson Sox participant David Ortiz.

The 2 athletes — each of whom will endlessly be hailed as heroes within the metropolis of Boston — embraced.

David Ortiz stated he felt like he gained when the Celtics gained it all

For Large Papi, who’s been retired from skilled sports activities for almost a decade, watching the journey to Banner 18 was an exciting expertise. The three-time World Sequence winner stated that he obtained a robust sense throughout the 2023 playoffs that the Celtics have been near successful all of it — and that he totally embraced the emotion of supporting the Celtics this previous season.

“I’m a Celtic,” Ortiz stated. “I cheer, I scream, I cry.”

“I can vouch for that,” Jrue Vacation added with a smile.

Picture by Brian Babineau/NBAE through Getty Pictures

The expertise of seeing Al Horford — a fellow skilled athlete for the Dominican Republic — win an NBA title was significantly significant for Ortiz. He was within the constructing for Recreation 1 of the Japanese Convention Finals, and watched TD Backyard explode in celebration after Jaylen Brown hit a game-tying three-pointer within the waning seconds to ship the sport to extra time.

“After I see the Celtics win, once I see my hometown homie getting it performed, I really feel like I obtained it performed,” Ortiz stated, oozing with pleasure.

Ortiz reminisced on how Crimson Sox followers stuffed the ballpark whatever the climate, or how issues have been going.

“I at all times say this once I return house — I’m so glad that I performed Boston as a result of the followers in Boston obtained one of the best out of me,” Oritz stated.

For Vacation, successful an NBA title in Boston was the spotlight of an unimaginable summer season

Vacation has been on fairly the roll since successful the championship with the Celtics in June. He headed to Las Vegas for coaching camp shortly after, after which abroad for the Olympics as a returning member of the U.S. males’s Olympic basketball staff.

Vacation was a key member of the gold medal successful squad, averaging 7.6 factors and three.6 assists in 18.8 minutes per recreation. Requested to check the 2 championships he secured this summer season, Vacation famous that beating France within the Gold Medal Recreation — in entrance of the French crowd — was undoubtedly particular.

“It was actually us in opposition to the world,” Vacation stated.

Nonetheless, successful an NBA championship in Boston, and the following chaotic championship parade, was an unparalleled expertise.

“Profitable right here was superb,” he stated. “I’m undecided something tops that.”

The most important back-to-back victories additionally meant that Vacation has barely had a second to take all of it in.

“It was all simply so overwhelming,” Vacation stated. “That was superb. Then the parade was loopy. So I can’t — I don’t know, I really feel like I’m nonetheless in a excessive with every thing occurring.”

Subsequent on the record? Again-to-back championships

Jrue Vacation already has two NBA championships and two gold medals below his belt. His subsequent pursuit is securing the elusive back-to-back championships.

Vacation is considered one of 13 Celtics getting back from final 12 months’s championship staff, a listing that features Al Horford, Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum, Derrick White, Kristaps Porzingis, Payton Pritchard, Sam Hauser, Neemias Queta, Luke Kornet, Xavier Tillman, Jordan Walsh and two-way gamers Drew Peterson and JD Davison.

Tatum, White, and Hauser all signed huge offseason extensions, whereas Queta, Tillman, and Kornet re-signed on minimal offers. It’s an astonishing return charge for a championship staff — and one which Vacation thinks will make an incredible distinction

“I feel it’s going to assist so much, “ Vacation stated. “It’s at all times laborious to win one, however then to win back-to-back is even tougher. So I feel simply sort of getting a head begin on different groups, probably, the place we now have the continuity and the purpose that we wished for the tip of the season — it ended up taking place for us, however to have the ability to go into the following season locked in and doing the identical factor.”

No NBA staff has managed to win the elusive back-to-back title for the reason that Warriors did it with Kevin Durant in 2017 and 2018. Jrue Vacation and the Celtics will hope to alter that.

On the conclusion of the occasion, Vacation and Ortiz each participated within the ribbon slicing ceremony to have fun the twenty eighth birthday of Elevating Cane’s — and the opening of a brand new restaurant location in downtown Boston.

At confetti inundated the air, each athletes skilled a well-known celebratory sight, in a bustling nook of town the place they’ll endlessly be referred to as champions.