How the Celtics’ trust in Jrue Holiday earned NBA championship No. 18

With a front-row seat to another mistake, Jrue Holiday decided it was time to speak up. His voice rarely rises above the crowd during a game, but this moment was exactly why the Boston Celtics traded for him.

It was in the middle of the first quarter of Game 3 of the NBA Finals when Holiday started to get déjà vu. Dallas Mavericks center Dereck Lively II soared over Celtics forward Xavier Tillman as Holiday witnessed a thunderous dunk, realizing how listless his team looked.

As the Dallas crowd erupted, Holiday started clapping, grabbing his teammates and telling them to wake up.

“I don’t talk very much. When I say something, I mean it,” Holiday recalled with a laugh. “They can hear the passion in my voice and see my face and how serious it is.”

At that time, Holiday was the only NBA champion on the Celtics roster. His teammates came close many times, but something always got in their way. Often, it was themselves. His time in Milwaukee taught him that there will often be lulls throughout a playoff run, and if they drag on, they can derail a title quest.

“In those situations that I’ve been in, I know that you can’t have that because it can change a whole series,” he said. “I spoke my mind and my guys responded.”

Early in the second quarter, the Celtics regained the lead and would eventually hold on to win, turning what could have been a tight series into an insurmountable 3-0 lead. Less than a week later, Holiday was no longer the only player on his team who could call himself a champion.

Holiday is one of the most distinct players in the NBA. He can fill just about every role on both sides of the ball. But perhaps his most valuable trait during Boston’s championship run was his steadiness in their most tense moments.

“Just be the calm in the storm,” Holiday said. “Know that not everything is going to go perfectly. But even though we are in this hard time, we can always make it out. But we’re going to do it together. So I just embrace those moments, ’cause they’re going to come.”

Even before the Celtics were counting on Holiday’s guidance, head coach Joe Mazzulla was listening. Two years earlier, Holiday — whose faith is a central part of his life — partnered with Hallow, a prayer and meditation app, to read bible passages to worshippers across the world.

When Mazzulla was Holiday’s coach for the 2023 All-Star Game, Mazzulla told him he had been listening to his prayers. He spoke of his plans to visit Israel and walk where Jesus walked.

“We talked about his journey,” Holiday said. “It helps a lot being able to relate on a level deeper than just basketball. I think that’s why our chemistry on our team is so good.”

From the day Holiday arrived in Boston, Mazzulla leaned into his new guard’s championship experience. But things would be different at his new stop. Since Milwaukee had Giannis Antetokounmpo and Brook Lopez behind him, most of Holiday’s assignments were to guard the ball.

In Boston, Holiday would cover every position, stepping away from being on the ball at a newfound frequency. The coach didn’t just give his defensive ace freedom, but a unique authority to change the Celtics’ coverages. Holiday said it was the first time in his career he was often the one orchestrating everything on the floor.

“I think for the most part (in the past), I usually was on the ball, so I was listening to other people. Here, it forces me to talk more, be able to tell people what I see,” Holiday said. “If I’m gonna switch or be in touch or whatever it is, I literally have to communicate because I’m the one anchoring it in the middle.”

But there was one defensive scheme that was entirely Holiday’s domain. The Celtics devised a zone defense with Holiday in the middle, and it was his job to determine when the Celtics would break it out.

If Holiday decided it was time to change the tempo of the game, he would turn to his teammates and mutter, “21 Savage.”

“I can’t remember if it was one of the guys’ favorite rappers, but I was like, ‘Let’s come up with a name just to make it fun,’ ” Mazzulla said. “Maybe it’s because Jrue’s a savage and he’s in the middle?”

Activating 21 Savage was Holiday’s responsibility. Sometimes Mazzulla would ask him during a timeout if they should go into it. Sometimes Holiday wouldn’t say a word, wait until the team gets on the court and then call it out.

It might last several possessions or as short as the first 14 seconds of the shot clock. The team just followed Holiday’s lead as he monitored the state of play.

“To be honest, we don’t even know what we’re doing out there,” Celtics teammate Sam Hauser said. “It’s pretty random. We just figure it out.”

The team trusted that Holiday had his finger on the emotional pulse of the game and counted on him to manipulate the opponent better than anyone else.

“It f—ed up the offense, really,” Holiday said. “Even if we go on a run, they call a timeout, they’re trying to adjust to what we’re doing. So we throw something different at ’em to mess them up too.”

According to teammate Al Horford, the 21 Savage zone works because Holiday is so effective at cleaning up teammates’ mistakes.

“It’s communication and some instinct, to be honest,” Horford said. “If there’s a breakdown or a mistake, he’s covering it up and then we’re reacting off of it and it’s just automatic. We’ve done a good job of trusting each other and instincts just take over.”

If someone was out of position, Holiday would jump in quickly to cover for them and then the rest of the defense would revolve around him. As offenses have increasingly become more read and react, Holiday helped the Celtics’ defense do the same.

“I think it just opened up his creativity and his instincts to do things that, just in the course of the game, he has the ability to do,” Mazzulla said. “When Jrue’s at his best, he’s not thinking. He’s just instinctually reacting and he can change a defensive possession and change an entire game.”

“I don’t talk very much. When I say something, I mean it,” Holiday said. (Jesse D. Garrabrant / NBAE via Getty Images)

When Holiday isn’t orchestrating the defense, he doesn’t make a whole lot of noise. He isn’t a speeches guy. He doesn’t talk much trash.

For someone who plays with so much ferocity, Holiday is surprisingly quiet. Charles Lee, who coached him in Milwaukee and Boston before becoming the Charlotte Hornets head coach this summer, calls this demeanor Holiday’s “Cali Cool.”

“He has such a great competitive edge to him but he doesn’t let the emotions of the game overwhelm him,” Lee said. “He’s able to embrace those emotions. He trusts his game. He’s fearless. That’s why he’s able to just make big plays in those moments. He doesn’t shrink at all.”

This was an innate trait for Holiday, something teammates saw even when he came to the league as a teenager.

“I knew Jrue was going to be special from the first day because he was one of those guys that came in, he worked, but he also didn’t give a f—,” said Thad Young, Holiday’s teammate with the Philadelphia 76ers early in their careers. “He had a calm demeanor, never rushed, never forced to be out of control.”

Most players have to grow into composure, but Holiday always had that Cali Cool. Even in crucial playoff moments, teammates catching their breath during a break in play would often look over to see him carefree, singing along to the arena music.

Friends would ask him if he ever feels tense in high-pressure situations. If it’s there, they don’t see it.

“You do feel the tension, but how do you not let the tension debilitate you?” Holiday said. “How can you still go out there and perform at the level you want to perform? So I feel like stuff like that just clears my mind and it helps me relax. Then I’m able to lock back in.”

Holiday found a kinship with Horford, the longtime veteran leader in Boston who carries himself in a similar manner. Horford respected that Holiday wasn’t chirping all the time, that he didn’t hold his championship credentials over the locker room to demand respect.

“We know it. He knows it. There’s no need to talk about it,” Horford said. “It’s just kind of there.”

Before Holiday arrived, many wondered how the Celtics would fill the void in shaping the culture and defensive intensity after Marcus Smart departed. Franchise leadership insisted Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum were ready to step up, which would eventually prove to be true. But the team still needed an extra spark.

Celtics president of basketball operations Brad Stevens carefully constructed a roster of balanced egos and knew he had the perfect final piece to the puzzle when Holiday went on the trading block. When the Celtics first acquired, Stevens said Holiday was part of a short list of players in the league who are perfect fits, but that he never thought he’d have a real chance to get. A player who could morph into whatever the team needed him to be — without resistance or expectations.

“I wanted to be positive. I don’t care for any of the negative stuff,” Holiday said. “This is a journey and I want the journey to be as great as possible. I know there’s going to be ups and downs and hard times, but I don’t have time to be a hater.”

Lee praised Holiday’s passive leadership as a recognition that you don’t always need to be the biggest voice in the room. Holiday waits for those moments when he feels his input will carry the most weight.

So when Holiday gathered his team for that brief speech during the NBA Finals, there was no confusion about where his passion was coming from.

“I was just speaking how I felt,” Holiday said. “With a team like this, they responded in a way that is professional, but you can tell that people care. Sometimes when people don’t, you feel like you have something to say and you have reservations about saying it. But on this team, it was honestly about winning and whatever it took.

“I know that winning is more than just yourself.”

Little about the way Holiday carried himself was a surprise to Mazzulla. It was a bold move to hand the keys to the defense over to a new player, even with a stellar reputation around the league. But after listening to Holiday’s prayers before they ever met, Mazzulla already had heard all he needed to give that trust.

So when Mazzulla went to catch up with Holiday at the Paris Olympics this summer, it wasn’t just to reminisce on their shared success in winning a title. Mazzulla was excited to tell him they were now peers on Hallow, as the coach was finally invited to record his prayers.

“It’s crazy that it’s a part of how we connected and he gets to be on it too,” Holiday said. “Look at God, man.”

(Illustration: Meech Robinson / The Athletic; Photos: Joshua Gateley, Francois Nel / Getty Images)