Karalis: Celtics narratives are being rewritten, and there's an even better story unfolding

It’s funny to watch narratives shift in real time. 

The same phenomenon that was used to cut the Celtics down in their run-up to the title is now being used to build them back up. It’s like watching one of those jumbotron bits where people are eating but the video is in reverse.

The re-framing of the discussion of the Celtics has begun in earnest. With a championship in hand, the Celtics can now grab the script from all the talking heads, pull out their red pens, and start making some corrections. 

“Failures” are now “adversity.” 

“Can’t get the job done” is replaced with “learning process.”

“Awkward-looking idiot” is now “handsome reporter and smart podcaster.” 

What? I can’t try to sneak one in while we’re here?

As the confetti rained down onto the parquet, it erased the negative narratives around the Celtics and forced them to be looked at in a new light. As ESPN shifts away from the NBA season and into the draft and free agency, they had one day to fill with praise for Boston.

The Celtics season is now being considered among the most dominant in NBA history, even though it most certainly was not discussed that way as these numbers were being compiled.

• The Celtics held 20-point leads in 50 of 101 games they played, something only the 2017 Warriors did. 

• They have 15 more regular season and playoff wins than anyone, the sixth team in history to do that.

• The Celtics' .792 winning percentage is second only to the 1986 Celtics.

• Their point differential of +10.7 is the fifth-best in NBA history.

• Boston had the most wins by 50, 40, 30, and 25 points. 

Those stats were on their way to being compiled before the playoffs. They were certainly enhanced by easy (in terms of number of games) victories over Miami, Cleveland, and Indiana heading into the Finals. They added to these stats in the Finals, but these were mostly there five games ago. 

But why are they only now part of the national discussion?

Because winners write history. 

A championship is the best antiseptic for bad takes. And as much as I preach the focus should be on the process, human nature makes that impossible. 

Again, all of those stats were there ahead of the Finals. The domination had been completed before they won four more games. What these players accomplished was done and documented. Not winning a championship doesn’t change any of what they had already accomplished. 

But that's not how the world works. It doesn’t matter if everyone watched a chef prepare the best meal in the world. If the waiter drops the food on the way to the table, no one gets to enjoy it. No matter what we think in that moment, the best food someone ever tasted would be from somewhere else. 

Sports is a zero-sum game. In the end, there must be a winner and a loser. They don’t cut trophies in half. 

I said before Game 4 that it was time to see this team for what it is. That's starting to happen. The golden glow of the Larry O’Brien trophy is already working its magic. By the time the team jumps onto the duck boats on Friday, the ink will be dry on many of the revisions. 

Or maybe that's not how we should look at it. 

Maybe we wouldn’t have to make the revisions if we just let the story be written as it’s happening. By doing it this way, we become the Seinfeld girlfriend who guesses all the wrong endings to his sentences. We keep having to go back and fix the story. We keep missing the little teases along the way to the next thing that might happen. 

Jaylen Brown signed his extension last summer. Jayson Tatum is getting one any minute now. Derrick White is next. Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis already got theirs. Al Horford has one more year left on his deal. This whole team is coming back. And they're coming backed armed with two things now: The pain of the failures of the past, and the joy of overcoming them because of what that pain taught them.

“Everything I've learned in the past two years just kind of prepared us for this,” White said through mangled teeth in the aftermath of Game 5. “They were trying to say we weren't battled tested; I'm like, What do you think the last two years was? Did that not mean nothing?”

It actually meant everything. 

Winning the Finals two seasons ago would have been the wrong thing for Boston because it would have reinforced their worst habits. Completing the comeback against Miami last season would have been wrong because it would have told them taking certain part of the journey lightly can be forgiven. 

We can look back and say they needed those experiences just like we can look back at this season and say those two years helped create one of the most dominant true teams in NBA history. 

We won’t know how truly great this team is until the full story is told. Everyone is coming back next season, which is rare. They have learned that sacrificing for each other works pretty damn well. 

They're writing one hell of a story. Let’s enjoy it.