Jayson Tatum Defends Jaylen Brown: 'It Was Tough' Hearing Critics, Celtics Rumors

The Boston Celtics finally got over the hump with the duo of Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown this past season, winning an NBA championship after getting through an injury-marred Eastern Conference and the Dallas Mavericks in the NBA Finals.

On Thursday, Tatum appeared on Wave Sports + Entertainment's 7PM in Brooklyn with Carmelo Anthony and The Kid Mero and spoke about proving the critics wrong after the Celtics came up short in their previous trips to the conference finals and NBA Finals (21:25 mark):

"We looked at it as you get to the conference finals five out of seven years, that's sustained success. A lot of people like, 'Oh, they knocking on the door. They don't have enough.' It's like, no, we knew our time was coming. We knew it was just any day or any year that it was going to fall in place. But it was tough. I just turned 26 and they was talking about us like we was 32 and 35, like our window had closed. And they say your prime don't start till you 27, 28. So we felt like we was ahead of the curve and we was like, 'Yo, it was just a matter of time.' "

Tatum also noted that his relationship and on-court partnership with Brown to time to grow and mature, but by last season was in an excellent place:

"Over time we had to learn how to coexist with each other. And that's for anybody. I was 19, he was 20 when I first got to the league. We were still figuring out our personal life. Our family just navigating through this thing called the NBA, with so many expectations of being with Boston and we play on national TV every other night. Like it's a lot of things that come with that. So we had to learn that we needed each other and we got to a perfect point in our career where he had got his money, I had got mine. We had All-Star and All-NBA selections. Like we wasn't tripping off that. It was just like, only thing we haven't done is win a championship."

Both were excellent in the postseason. Tatum averaged 25 points, 9.7 rebounds, 6.3 assists and 1.1 steals across the team's 19 postseason games, while Brown chipped in with 23.9 points, 5.9 rebounds, 3.3 assists, 1.2 steals and was both the Eastern Conference Finals and NBA Finals MVP.

The path to a repeat won't be easy. Both the Philadelphia 76ers and New York Knicks improved in a major way this offseason, while a healthy version of the Milwaukee Bucks remains a major threat. But Boston will be the favorites, bringing a different form of pressure for Tatum and Brown to navigate.