Newly acquired Celtics forward Kevin Garnett, center, with forward Paul Pierce, left, and guard Ray Allen during a news conference in Boston last July, when the Big Three was formed.

AP / Charles Krupa

BOSTON — It took 59 days and a record 26 postseason games, but the Boston Celtics are the deserving NBA champions today.

The Celtics traveled through Atlanta, Cleveland, Detroit and Los Angeles on their way to the franchise’s long-awaited title No. 17, and with the Big Three of Ray Allen, Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce in place, the team is positioned for more winning in the immediate future.

With the re-signing of a key free agent (ink James Posey now, Danny), a few tweaks to the bench and a renewed desire to make another long, tiring run, the Celtics should be the favorites to repeat, no matter what the clueless Las Vegas oddsmakers tell us.

But before we look too far ahead, here are some snippets from the playoff run that took place both behind the scenes and for the basketball world to enjoy.

•The first picture is actually one that all Celtics fans have seen. It’s from the night of July 31. Garnett is being introduced to Boston for the first time and Celtics Nation is absolutely giddy. The team holds a news conference in a restaurant inside the Garden, complete with live TV, Lucky the mascot and the promise of a championship. The one person who literally cannot take the smile off his face? Paul Pierce.

•We walk into Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland for Game Four nearly four hours before tip-off. On one end of the floor, LeBron James is shooting 15-footers. On the other is Ray Allen, tossing up his sweet jumper as he moves from one corner to the other.

Allen has been struggling with his shot and gracefully answers questions about his misses multiple times, every day, from the press. But in the solitude of a near-empty arena, the 12-year veteran is working on his game, lofting shots he’s made hundreds of thousands of times.

•We’re having dinner with a few sports-writer pals in the tony Detroit suburb of Birmingham. The Celtics’ hotel is around the corner, and as the salads arrive, Allen and a friend stroll down the other side of the street. As we turn and look, Allen waves. A star athlete waving to sports writers in a restaurant. Thought those days were over.

•It’s Game One of the NBA Finals and the Celtics are going toe-to-toe with the Lakers. Then, in the blink of an eye, Pierce is on the floor. He gets carried off by two teammates and placed in a wheelchair that somehow appears out of nowhere.

After a few trips up and down the floor, Pierce comes charging out of the tunnel next to the Celts’ bench like some Roman entering the Coliseum. He proceeds to take the floor and makes two 3-point shots that turn the game in Boston’s favor. Without the Game One win, who knows how the series would have played out?

The next day, Lakers coach Phil Jackson utters the line of the series when he says, “Paul got carried off and was back on his feet in a minute. I don’t know if the angels visited him at halftime or in that time-out period that he had or not, but he didn’t even limp when he came back out on the floor. I don’t know what was going on there. Was Oral Roberts back there in their locker room?”

•It’s an off-day in Los Angeles, but both coaches are available to the press. Jackson does his five-minute thing, offering nothing and carrying himself like some detached dork. Then Doc Rivers takes the stage. Rivers is engaging, self-deprecating, tells stories and clearly enjoys the media tango.

When a writer asks Rivers how his father, a Chicago cop who died in November, would have enjoyed the Celtics’ run to the Finals, Rivers freezes. He rubs his face and eyes, scratches his head and cannot speak as he holds back tears for almost a minute. He later says, “He’s just very important in my life. It’s still very difficult for me to talk about because I haven’t had a lot of time, really, to reflect on it. You know, it happened during the season, unexpectedly. It’s very, very difficult. But I do think about it. I think about it a lot.”

•There are two holdovers from the Rick Pitino Era with the Celtics. One is player personnel/scout Leo Papile. The other is John Connor, the team’s equipment manager. No one puts in longer hours and no one knows the players and coaches better than Connor, the resident of Lakeville, Mass. He used to beat Pierce in 3-point shooting games. Enough said.

It’s a long week in L.A. and a bleary-eyed Johnny Joe is at the Staples Center. We ask him if he just wants the playoffs to end. “No,” he says. “I just want a ring.”

•Finally, leave it to the well-spoken, polished and newly crowned coaching hero Rivers to crystallize what his three stars have done. After literally earning more than $250 million in their careers and feeling unfulfilled, Allen, Garnett and Pierce are now happy.

“I just think we got them at the right time, honestly,” he said. “Their money can buy everything except the trophy, and the only way that they’re going to do that is you’re going to have to lean on someone else to achieve that goal. I thought as important as it was that they trusted each other, I thought it was far more important that they trusted the other guys. That was far more important than them getting along, and they did that.”

kmcnamar@projo.com