Nothing is certain in the NBA. Anything can happen once the games are played. But the Boston Celtics were the most dominant team in the league last season, and they capped it all off with an NBA Championship. They took down the Dallas Mavericks in the NBA Finals, beating Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving in five games.

But the Mavs weren’t the favorites to come out of the West. In fact, it was a bit surprising that they were the conference’s representatives in the Finals. For the Celtics, however, it was music to their ears. They matched up very well with Dallas, and according to Jayson Tatum, he knew they could win the series.

More specifically, he remembers the exact moment he knew Boston would win the NBA Championship.

During a recent appearance at the Maynard Fine Arts Theatre, Tatum said that once the Denver Nuggets were eliminated from the NBA Playoffs, he knew the Celtics would win it all.

“People always ask me, when did you guys know you were going to win a championship?” Tatum said via Gary Washurn of The Boston Globe. “When Minnesota beat Denver, I felt like Denver was the only team that they matched up best with us. I thought that we were going to play Denver in the Finals, and it was going to be a good one.”

The Nuggets, Minnesota Timberwolves, and Oklahoma City Thunder were the best three teams in the West last year. But the Mavs still managed to make it out alive.

Dallas took down Oklahoma City in the second round and beat Minnesota in the conference finals, but they never had to go through Denver. That’s because the Timberwolves defeated them in Round 2.

Just one year after winning their first title in franchise history, Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray got bounced in the second round by the very team that gave them some trouble the year prior. 

Had the Celtics had to face the Nuggets in the Finals, the series could have been a lot more interesting.

Denver beat Boston twice during the regular season. In fact, they were the only team in the league that the Celtics didn’t earn a win against that year. Both games were very close, but the Nuggets came out on top both times.

That just goes to show how important matchups are in today’s league. Who knows what would have happened had Boston played Denver in the Finals?