Jayson Tatum Went Nuclear Yesterday In The Celtics Win And Made Some NBA History Along The Way

Scott Taetsch. Getty Images.

When you see your favorite team is going to play an early afternoon game, you never know what to expect. When your favorite team is the Boston Celtics who happen to be playing an early afternoon game, you mostly expect disaster. Especially coming off an embarrassing and horrific loss at home the game prior. Those are usually the snowball games where things go from bad to worse. So you can imagine my surprise, relief, and excitement to not only watch the Celts basically win by 30, but to see Jayson Tatum do some pretty history shit along the way. With the lineup finally back for the first time in a while, the Celts looked great. Boy did they need that. January has been mostly an up and down month with some good wins mixed in with some devastating collapses and bad losses. Basically, an inconsistent team has done inconsistent shit. And just like the Blazers loss was an example of what this team is capable of on the bad end of the spectrum, yesterday afternoon was an example of what they are capable of on the good side of that same spectrum. The thing is, we already sort of knew that. We know that when this team plays to their ceiling they are fucking nails. The problem is their refusal to consistently play at that ceiling. This team could absolutely go out and lay an egg tomorrow at home against the Kings. I think everyone acknowledges that, and it's a big reason why they sit at just 24-24 through 48 games. 

But it's also OK to acknowledge that when this team has their guys, and everyone plays their role, that maybe this team isn't as bad as you think. The numbers certainly don't suggest that. They are now 8-5 (.615) on the season with their normal starting group. A small sample, but one I think we all are hoping to see more of these next few months. At 13 games, they are still the team with the fewest games with their normal rotations/lineups of any top 10 seeds in the East. I'd just like to see them get to the same amount as everyone else when it comes to that. They don't need to lead the league, I'd just prefer they didn't have the fewest. I want to see more of what this team was intended to be, I don't think that's crazy. 

There's also a strong chance you spent your Sunday watching all the incredible football we got, so if that's the case and you missed yesterday's activities, simply keep reading.

The Good

- It makes perfect sense that the only way for Jayson Tatum to break out of the longest three point shooting drought of his career was to go ahead and make the most threes he's ever made in his career in a single game. I love that this was how be broke that 0-20 slump. It would have been lame if he went like 2-7 or something. Instead, we got 9-14 and another historic performance

It's important to remember how not normal this stuff is. People aren't going out and dropping an efficient 51/10/7 with 9 3PM all that often. To be just 23 years old and doing it, yeah, that's a little different. This is why you live through the droughts and keep the faith, because these are the types of performances that Tatum is capable of giving. He's also capable of going 5-20 tomorrow. It's all on the table. I would say it's easy to see why Tatum had this type of success once you look at his approach. Sure, yesterday was a game in which his outside shot was falling, but to me that's because he had the proper approach. He attacked the rim early and often, got that confidence and then boom. The shooting came back

Perhaps one of the more impressive parts of his day was the fact that his 51 came with only 6 FTA. Again, that's pretty rare

Fewest in Celtics history, and just the 22nd time in 75 years for the whole league. It just goes to show how elite Tatum's shot making was in this game. 

But Tatum's performance was about way more than just his 51. He again put in work on the glass (10) he finished with 7 assists and probably should have had a few more which goes to show he was willing to be unselfish and give what the game called for. Then to see he only finished with 1 TO? 

It was a masterclass performance in every sense of the word. I'm sorry, but if you keep finding yourself in the same sentence as Larry Bird, you're doing something special.

You want an additional look at how rare of a performance we saw yesterday? OK, no problem. It's only been done by 3 other players in the history of the NBA

Again, 23 years old.

- Let's talk about finally getting back to seeing the normal intended starting five. Yesterday marked the 13th game of the season we've seen it, and here is how they've done

Record: 8-5 (.615)

13 games / 160 minutes / 110.4 Ortg / 92.6 Drtg / +17.8 net rating / 61.2 AST% / 59.4% TS

Encouraging! You can see why some might want to see this group play together. Here's the thing that I liked as well when it came to this lineup. Ime started with the double bigs, but then adjusted his rotations to stagger Al and Rob. This prevented from having to rely on Enes minutes. That looks like progress to me! We also saw Ime hold off on the Smart/Dennis lineups for as long as he could until Jaylen ended up in foul trouble. 

Which brings me to my overall point when it comes to the double big shit. Starting that way is fine. The numbers back it up. But it's then on Ime to figure out substation patterns and rotations that stem from that group which allows the team to not have to play players who shouldn't see the floor. Curious how this lineup did yesterday?

15 minutes / 123.3 Ortg / 103.4 Drtg / +19.9 net

What changed? Oh that's right, a certain someone returned

- For whatever reason, when the Celtics win a game without Marcus Smart my timeline and mentions are filled with "Wow, guess the Celts don't need Smart!" or something along those lines. You can set your watch to it. Yet surprisingly, I didn't see all those same accounts talking about Smart yesterday. Why do we think that is? Ah, it is because of this?

Like I said at the beginning of this blog, when this team is healthy and everyone plays within their role, they look a whole lot better. I'd say that is exactly what we got from Smart in his return. He finished with 11/4/6/4 on 4-9 (2-6) and was a team best +36 in his 30 minutes. They played fast, their perimeter defense was a whole lot better, and look how different things looked with a pass/defense first guard in the lineup. 

I'm not sure how many more times Smart has to have games like this before people start realizing his value and importance to this lineup. He's certainly not perfect, some of his passes in this game were very bad and unnecessary, but there's no denying that the good outweighed the bad. If he's going to continue to play at an All Defensive level and continues to facilitate like he has all year, the Celts can win with him. We've seen it. The ability of Smart to use his size to get into the paint is something this team desperately lacked against both the Hornets and the Blazers down the stretch. 

Who knew that getting your All NBA defender and best natural passer in the lineup would improve both your defense and your offense. Crazy.

- The more and more we see Grant, the more and more he looks like a solid NBA rotation player. The shooting is for real, the defense is getting back to being solid, and he's another guy that has embraced his role. It's his job to knock down open threes, rebound, and defend. That's what we got yesterday

- 26 assists on 40 FGM. 19 3PM. Didn't collapse in the fourth quarter. I swear we haven't seen all those things in the same game at any point this season. Cherish it. Appreciate it. You might never see it again.

To that point, it's so fucked up that even with the Celts up 22 points in the fourth quarter I could not stop staring at the clock. From 12 minutes to 10:30 left I probably looked new fewer than 500 times. That's how beaten I am. Every single miss I thought to myself "oh shit this is it". That's no way to live. We shouldn't have to do that as fans, yet I can't help it. That's what happens when you blow a billion fourth quarters. You can't trust a single lead, even if a rational brain would know it's going to work out OK. I don't think that'll change for me the rest of the year.

The Bad

- Kind of a weird day for Jaylen. On one hand, 18/10 and 4-9 from deep would go in the good category. The shocking part was his 1-9 performance on 2pt-ers. That's not great. And while he didn't have any game losing mental mistakes defensively, I didn't think his defense was all that great. Especially in that little mini run in the 2nd quarter. I thought you could tell he was getting a little frustrated with his lack of calls on drives, so while it was nice to see him put in effort in other areas, I still think he needs to be better moving forward. 

One thing I've noticed with Jaylen is he's someone that loves the homerun three. I get it, he has the skillset to take whatever shot he wants, but I do think the situation is important. He had a couple early shot clock threes which you could argue weren't exactly the best shot, and that's been the case these last few games. Obviously Jaylen can make threes so you live with it, I just ask to see better decision making on a possession by possession basis. Especially when the Celts are trying to establish a lead. Nothing wrong with hitting singles.

- Another rough shooting night for Al. Just 3-10 (1-4), this wasn't just the case of him missing his wide open threes. He also couldn't stop smoking bunnies. Fortunately Tatum went nuclear and it didn't really matter, but so much of the success of this team offensively comes down to whether or not defenses are going to have to respect Al as a shooter. Right now, he's giving them no reason to. He doesn't have to drop 51, but I need something better than 3-10, especially when the majority of his looks were around the rim.

- It ultimately didn't matter, but Dennis was a little too turnover happy in the fourth quarter for my liking. In fact, you'll see the fourth quarter wasn't all that good from anyone. Overall though, Dennis finished with more TOs than FGM, and didn't exactly play fast. He only played 22 minutes which isn't a whole lot, and honestly outside of Grant I would say no second unit player looked all that good in this game. 

The Ugly

- It's true, the Celtics did not blow a 4th quarter. In fact, they won it 25-18. So why is it in this section? Because it wasn't exactly pretty basketball

Objectively speaking, that stinks. The Wizards were just worse. But 34/28% splits with 5 TOs in a quarter is not what I would call good basketball. They do this shit in a game in which they do not have a 22 point lead heading into it, this most likely ends in another loss. I just don't get it. Why does this team forget how to play when they get to the last 12 minutes? Make it make sense.

I will say it was a relief to see that only 7 of their 23 FGA were threes, that was a nice change of pace, but there's no denying this team still has big time struggles in the final 12 minutes. Just because it didn't end in a loss doesn't mean we can just gloss over it. Their end of game play needs to improve. That's nothing new and nothing we saw yesterday told us they are there yet. If anything, it only gave me more reason to be concerned. 

To say we've been in this position before this year only to then see the Celts take 2 steps back would be an understatement. We all know the deal. It's OK to enjoy a nice win and a historic performance, but big picture things haven't changed. This is still a .500 team that needs to stack wins. They have an opportunity to do just that, but they need to cut the shit when it comes to these bad losses. The schedule doesn't mean dick if you don't take care of your own business. That's still the #1 question for this team moving forward. It's not about having these one off performances, it's about having them and then building on it. No steps back, only steps forward. They haven't been able to do it through 48 games, so all you can do is be hopeful that with guys back in the lineup we'll finally start to see it.