Anderson, Clark, Holiday Headed to NBA's Conference Finals

Former UCLA standouts Jrue Holiday of the Boston Celtics and Kyle Anderson and Jaylen Clark of the Minnesota Timberwolves have helped their respective NBA teams advance to the conference finals of the 2024 NBA Playoffs.

Holiday, now in his 16th NBA season, has been an instrumental member of the Boston Celtics this season. Boston defeated the Cleveland Cavs, four games to one, in the semifinals of the Eastern Conference playoffs. Holiday and the No. 1-seed Celtics have advanced to face the No. 6-seed Indiana Pacers in a best-of-seven game series starting on Tuesday night.

Holiday averaged 13.0 points, 5.2 rebounds and 3.8 assists in five games in the series against Cleveland. During the 2023-24 regular season, he registered 12.5 points, 4.8 rebounds and 5.4 assists per game. He averaged 32.8 minutes per game in 69 regular-season contests.

Anderson, now in his 10th NBA season, helped propel Minnesota past the defending NBA champion Denver Nuggets in a seven-game series which concluded Sunday evening. Anderson played in six of the seven games. Clark, a rookie who was drafted by Minnesota last summer, has not seen any NBA action yet while recovering from a season-ending injury at UCLA in March of 2023. Minnesota, seeded No. 3 in the Western Conference, defeated No. 2-seed Denver and will take on the No. 5-seed Dallas Mavericks in the Western Conference Finals, starting on Wednesday evening.

Anderson, a first-round NBA Draft selection by San Antonio in 2014, will be making his second trip to the NBA's conference finals (previously, with San Antonio in 2017). He averaged 6.4 points, 3.5 rebounds and 4.2 assists in 79 regular-season contests in 2023-24 with Minnesota.

This marks the fourth consecutive season in which UCLA's program has had at least one former player on the roster of an NBA squad competing in the conference finals. The Bruins have seen at least one former player win the NBA title in seven of the last eight seasons (with 2020 being the lone exception in that range).

Last season, Peyton Watson was a part of the Denver Nuggets' first-ever NBA title during his rookie campaign. In 2022, Kevon Looney won his third NBA title as a member of the Golden State Warriors (also secured championships in 2017 and 2018). In 2021, Holiday helped lead the Milwaukee Bucks to their second NBA title in franchise history.

In all, UCLA has seen 23 former players help their NBA team win the NBA Finals a total of 37 times. At least one former UCLA player has led his NBA team to the NBA Finals, 70 total times. Six Bruins have guided their respective teams to an NBA title at least twice – Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (six), Jamaal Wilkes (four), Kevon Looney (three), Willie Naulls (three), Jordan Farmar (two) and Bill Walton (two).

Recent Results

Upcoming Events

Anderson, Clark, Holiday Headed to NBA's Conference Finals

Players Mentioned

Jaylen Clark

University of California, Los Angeles, Athletics

Anderson, Clark, Holiday Headed to NBA's Conference Finals

Players Mentioned

Jaylen Clark

Related Videos