The Boston Celtics are NBA champions, defeating the Dallas Mavericks, 106-88, in Monday’s Game

5 to win the NBA Finals. It’s been a long road for the Celtics and their franchise pillars, Jayson

Tatum and Jaylen Brown, so the celebration figures to stretch even longer.

Boston got started with champagne showers in the locker room last night and continued into the

late evening, when Tatum eventually ended up on a stage with the Larry O’Brien trophy and a

microphone. He took a shot at Celtics critics with a Kanye West quote, saying, “Everybody was

wondering what would happen if we didn’t win. I guess we’ll never know.”

This is, of course, a pull from West’s acceptance speech at the 2005 Grammy Awards after winning Best Rap Album.

Tatum and his teammates have earned the right to call everyone out in this manner. To the victor go the spoils. While much of the doubt surrounding the Celtics heading into the Finals was unfounded after their season of dominance, it was still present and athletes thrive off that “us against the world” mentality.

So it doesn’t really matter whether Boston was ever truly the underdog against the Mavs. The victory lap was well-earned and Tatum’s viral video is only the beginning.