Jrue Holiday’s defense, experience and timely scoring were key for the Celtics as he doubled his personal ring total to 2.

PARIS — When you play until the official end of the NBA season, all the way to the league’s final game, stretched thin from October to June, and fortunate enough to be covered in confetti on that last glorious night, the mind and body beg for a break.

Say, until next fall.

With a trip or two to a getaway place, preferably where palm trees sway, as a detour.

But then, the fortunate player only rests long enough to catch his breath and a plane and he’s immediately back to the grind, once more with the sole purpose of winning a world title.

This is called the NBA championship-to-Olympic gold medal back-to-back, heretofore known as pulling off a Jrue Holiday when you do it twice.

The veteran Boston Celtics guard has only done this summer double once before, not to suggest that isn’t impressive enough.

And yet the odds for 2024 are obvious. He’s on Team USA, the strong favorite to assume the top shelf on the men’s basketball medal stand, which means Holiday is poised to match Scottie Pippen, the only other with two back-to-backs.

(Pippen won gold with “The Dream Team” in the 1992 Olympics after the Chicago Bulls won their second of three straight titles. He repeated the feat in the 1996 Olympics, which came shortly after the Bulls began what was another three-peat.)

“It’s cool to even think about it,” he said.

It will be enough to give the 6-foot-4 guard an enviable basketball distinction and should punch his ticket to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, which weighs basketball within and beyond the NBA. What’s more, it would cement Holiday as a hoops difference-maker, someone who:

1. Was twice acquired by an NBA team to be the final piece of a championship puzzle, first with the Bucks, then Celtics.

2. Was chosen for Team USA over players with more All-Star credentials and sneaker sales because Holiday offers the basic ingredients — defense and leadership — that balance American teammates who need shots.

For the second summer of his career, there’s no holiday for Holiday — just more hoops and a chance to be crowned a champion twice in less than two months.

“To be able to serve your country, to be able to play with some of the best players in this country where you can feel greatness in the room is a hell of an honor,” he said.

From big Bucks to gold

Holiday was a second-tier player at best from the year he was drafted in 2009 until 2020. In that stretch, he made one All-Star team and won zero championships. He was slowly turning invisible at the tail end, stuck on a New Orleans Pelicans team headed nowhere.

His next-level defense scored big points among NBA coaches — who only voted him an All-Star once — and his unassuming, fit-in personality made him a locker-room favorite. He was defined as underrated, meaning Holiday’s career was respectable, nothing more.

Luck arrived when Anthony Davis asked the Pelicans for a trade. They did, to the Lakers, and then the dominoes fell in New Orleans, changing Holiday’s fate better than he could ever imagine.

The rebuilding Pelicans did not need Holiday, their best trade asset. Contenders placed bids, the Bucks sent a package of picks in exchange and Milwaukee became a heavy title favorite.

Holiday teamed with Giannis Antetokounmpo, the Bucks flourished throughout the season and beat the Suns in six for the 2020-21 championship.

Coincidently, Davis and Holiday are now reunited on 2024 Team USA. And in the turning point of the 2021 Finals, Phoenix’s Devin Booker — also on the current squad — had his candy stolen in the closing minute of Game 5 by Holiday, who then threw a lob to Antetokounmpo for the clinching dunk.

“It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done,” Holiday said about the series. “Mentally and physically, you’re exhausted.”

The fatigue became real in the ensuing days as those Finals were pushed ahead that season because of the season’s late start due to the COVID pandemic. Game 6 was July 20 in Milwaukee. The Olympic opener was July 25 … in Tokyo.

“Fly, land, play the same day, different time zone,” he said. “That was crazy.”

Perhaps, but this was insane: Holiday led all USA scorers in that opener (a loss to France), then was arguably the second-most important player on the team after Kevin Durant. The Americans didn’t lose again. Holiday started five of the six games, led the team in assists, played the second-most minutes and averaged the third-highest points (on 48% shooting).

“I didn’t think I would be relied on like that,” he said. “It was just an honor and made for a hell of an experience.”

From Celtic green … to Paris gold?

When the Bucks faltered in the years after that title — blame postseason injuries to Antetokounmpo and Khris Middleton — the franchise panicked. Sensing their future was better in the hands of a backcourt scorer instead of a defender, they essentially swapped Holiday for Damian Lillard.

This marked the second time Holiday was lucky: he was sent to the rebuilding Trail Blazers who, much like the Pelicans, were eager to slap a “for sale” sign on Holiday.

That’s when the Celtics came calling, and the ready-made title contender added one more reason to suspect, with good reason as it turned out, that banner No. 18 was a foregone conclusion.

Holiday was once more was a great fit, this time next to Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown. Timing meant everything, for the team and Holiday, and the Celtics dominated the NBA from start to finish in 2023-24.

Before that season began, Team USA managing director Grant Hill and coach Steve Kerr had Holiday on their radar for Paris. Both loved what he brought in 2021 and figured Holiday would work even better with LeBron James and Stephen Curry, neither of whom were on that team.

Also, both wanted Holiday to be a core member of Team USA’s defense, which Kerr planned to emphasize.

“We have scorers,” Kerr said. “Anyone can score 25, 30 on any given night. We want our players to embrace defense.”

The officiating on the international level is more forgiving when it comes to allowing a measure of physicality on defense. The FIBA referees rarely fall for flopping or touch fouls, and Holiday said amen to that.

“You’re allowed to be more physical on the ball, which I like,” he said. “You can’t reach, which is completely fine, but able to be aggressive with your body and stay in front of your man. For most of my career I’ve been pretty good at that.”

Holiday therefore will come in handy when the USA meets Canada and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and Serbia with Bogdan Bogdanovic, among others.

Holiday, thrilled with the chance to play his style, already caught his second wind.

“It feels like we won (the championship) just the other day,” he said.

All in the family

Another reason these Olympic assignments carry deep meaning for Holiday? He’s just trying to match his wife’s gold medal haul.

They met at UCLA, where she played on the soccer team. Lauren Cheney didn’t just play — she was one of the country’s top talents, a first-team All-America all four years. Tough and smart, she became a fixture on the women’s national team.

As for the Olympics, she won gold in Beijing 2008 and London 2012, at which point she was the most decorated athlete in the Holiday family. At the 2011 FIFA Women’s World Cup, she made the tournament’s All-Star team, and in 2015 she lifted the World Cup itself.

“To be able to experience that with her then, when I was just a fan, to her coming this time to experience as a fan to see me will be pretty cool,” he said.

The Holiday family has come to symbolize the essence of American athletics — a high level of excellence and professionalism along with a passion for competing on the international stage. And in Lauren’s case, the ability to rebound from personal setbacks. She recovered from surgery to have a brain tumor removed, just weeks after giving birth to the couple’s first child, a daughter, in 2016.

This is the career stretch run for Holiday, who signed a contract extension with the Celtics, likely his final big payday. He’s older at 34 but the Celtics were sold on his work ethic and ability to stay in pristine condition, a habit he obtained from his father, a former Arizona State player who celebrates each birthday by dunking.

There’s another reason Jrue is big on conditioning:

“I don’t want my wife to leave me,” he joked.

He’s too steeped in age to be a lock for the 2028 Games, held in his hometown of Los Angeles. Team USA is transitioning as it searches for the next wave of Olympians.

USA Basketball will find another Jrue Holiday given the country’s rich talent pool.

But it might be a minute before the next player pulls off a Jrue Holiday.

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Shaun Powell has covered the NBA for more than 25 years. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on X.

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