Jayson Tatum Gave The Clearest And Most Accurate Explanation For The Celtics Turnaround

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I can't stress this enough, the brand of basketball the Celtics were playing to start the year was some of the most disgusting and frustrating shit you could possibly watch. Every night it was the same thing. As what tends to happen when you play that way, the vultures come sworming in. Suddenly, everyone is making big picture statements about how the mix doesn't work, there's no talent, the coach stinks, everyone needs to be fired or traded, you know the drill. Every national outlet regurgitates the same tired narratives. Tatum is selfish and doesn't care about winning. Smart shoots too much and doesn't pass. Tatum and Brown need to be split up. Wash, rinse, repeat.

This happens because people are looking for something juicy to point the struggles on. It brings way more attention/clicks/eyeballs if you talk about splitting Tatum/Brown up and that they don't work than talk about the actual tangible reasons. There's a reason you saw this take so much

around and around we went. There's a reason at their lowest, the vulture anonymous sources couldn't wait to slander them by hitting all the viral talking points. They don't like each other, they only care about themselves, they don't care about winning etc.

If you were someone who approached the Celtics underachievement with rational thought, this never made any sense. Especially when there were actual tangible things that helped tell their story. For example, one of the more popular reasons we heard that this core doesn't work together is the following line

"The Celtics clearly don't work, they're .500 through 100 games!"

I cannot tell you how many times I heard this when discussing the core of Smart/Tatum/Rob/Brown. What never made sense to me was these people were using games in which some of those guys didn't even play together to help make a point about why they don't work together. That's logic I still can't really follow. I've always been of the line of thinking if you're talking about how pieces fit together, you should look at the games in which those pieces actually play together. You do that, you see a much better than .500 record, suggesting that the pieces do in fact fit. 

After the game last night, Tatum touched on this subject and he gave probably the best answer I've ever heard in regards to this turnaround

The honest truth is their struggles had little to do with any of the juicy fake narratives that were jammed down our throat during their struggles. It was like people completely forgot about everything that happened before the world turned to shit. Turns out, having guys out due to Covid over two years can actually impact things! The Celts being dead fucking last in minutes with their regular guys impacted their record, how insane! It's not such a crazy concept to suggest that a team that showed they were good when they played together would return to being good when they were able to play together again. A large part of their issue to start the year was Tatum could literally not make a shot. Anyone who has watched Tatum in his career should have known not to freak out about that. 

All you have to do is simply look at how the Celts are doing by month

Then re-listen to that Tatum quote. He mentioned the new coach/system, well that maybe helps explain the 2-4 start, which if you remember included a couple brutal 2OT losses. Big deal. Then they got healthy and looked better. Once December hit the Celts entered one of the toughest schedule stretches in the league. This is also a time that Jaylen got hurt and missed the entire West Coast trip, then Al and Grant got covid once they returned home, and then Tatum was out at the end of the month. Playing nothing but really good teams, it's not crazy to suggest that helps explain what we saw.

Then we got to 2022, the schedule lightened up, they had like 7 weeks of near perfect health, Tatum started to look like Tatum again and look at their records! 

Yet, if you were to rationally explain this to people, what would you hear? Oh Greenie you're just making excuses! You delusional Green Teamer! No, I was just talking about what was actually happening. What's more believable, that everything Tatum said is why things got turned around, or suddenly Tatum and Brown now fit? Now nobody sucks? Or is it possible that people were a prisoner in the moment and were maybe a little frustrated and took things to illogical places. 

This does not excuse some of the late game collapses due to a style of play we all hate. It does not excuse their bad losses. But it's the context that so many people still try and make sound like excuses. The players who were active are responsible for what happened, that doesn't change. But if you want to tell the story of this team in an accurate fashion, nothing Tatum said is an excuse. It's what happened. 

The problem is, it's not sexy to say "the Celts are struggling due to lineup inconsistency and some slow starts". You don't get TV segments and national hit pieces with that, even if that's actually what is happening. It's not as if the Celtics suddenly decided to be good or fit. This is just what they look like healthy and fully adapted to a new system with their best player playing at the All NBA level we are accustomed to. Not all that different from when they had health in previous seasons.

It's why I think this level of play has been so sustainable these last 2 months. We're finally seeing what they look like after getting over their early season issues both strategy wise and health wise. Turns out that's pretty good. What a surprise.