Photo Credit: Globe staff photo / Bill Greene

Danny Ainge Draws Similarities Between This Year’s Boston Celtics And 2008 Boston Celtics

The Boston Celtics are back in the NBA Finals for the first time since losing to the Los Angeles Lakers in 2009-10 NBA season. The franchise last won an NBA championship in 2008 NBA Finals, where they were led by Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen.

Now being led by Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, anything is possible for the Celtics to win this year’s NBA championship as well. The Celtics have stolen one game in the Bay, and will go back to Boston for Game 3 with a 1-1 series. Three more wins and the Larry O’Brien trophy will be back at The Garden after 14 years.

Former Boston Celtics general manager and now-Utah Jazz executive Danny Ainge shared his thoughts on this year’s Celtics team. According to Ainge, the Tatum-led Celtics has a bit of similarities to the 2008 championship roster.

The Athletic:

“It’s a little bit like the team is structured now,” Ainge said. “We had good size (in 2008). We had a good size shooting guard (Ray Allen), a good size small forward (Paul Pierce). And obviously (Garnett) and (Kendrick Perkins) — as the four and the five, our size was good. Not a lot different than the team that the Celtics have right now with Al Horford and Robert Williams and allowing Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown and Marcus Smart to be big for their position.

When those guys played recently in the last couple years with Marcus at the two and Jaylen at the three and Tatum at the four, they were undersized at their positions. But by inserting Al Horford in there, all of a sudden now they were bigger at every position, and just as big at the five and bigger at one through four. And so that makes a big difference.”