Just under 72 hours ago, Jayson Tatum sank his first game-winning bucket since 2023 to push the Boston Celtics past the Toronto Raptors. That moment was met with excitement from Celtics fans and jest from a national standpoint.
No one was talking about the shot, they were commenting about how the NBA’s two-minute report said that he had traveled on the play.
Even when he’s great, Tatum doesn’t seem to get credit.
How did he respond?
By giving the undefeated Cleveland Cavaliers 33 points and their first loss of the season.
The 26-year-old scored bucket after bucket to spearhead Boston’s offense. This wasn’t just a “hot shooting night” either. No, Tatum took initiative and put pressure on Cleveland’s defense by getting himself to the rim. There may be no better version of Tatum than “aggressive Tatum.”
That aggressiveness earned him several close looks at the cup and seven trips to the free-throw line.
Though the willingness to drive was great, it certainly doesn’t hurt when JT has it going from deep like he did Tuesday night. He drilled 60% of his attempts from distance, including this third-quarter buzzer-beater where he put Georges Niang on the floor.
Tatum accompanied his scoring outburst with 12 boards, seven assists, and a pair of steals. It was a well-rounded counterpunch to his haters, to say the least.
That well-roundedness is what stood out to Cs head coach Joe Mazzulla.
“It was more important to get our drive-and-kick reads,” he said of the play of his stars. “And they (Tatum and Jaylen Brown) did a great job. They did a great balance of handling the pressure, driving to attack, driving to get to the free throw line, and driving to find guys. So the more I hope teams continue to be physical because it just gets us reps… They handled it really well.”
If you want to talk about drive-and-kick reads, look no further than this excellent find in the clutch by JT.
Tatum consistently made Cleveland’s defense pay if they overcommitted to him. He had a similar pass to the one above in the first half; it just went to an open Al Horford instead.
For him, it all boils down to team chemistry and making the right reads.
“We’ve been in so many moments together, so many big games that we don’t do anything spectacular,” he said after the win. “We just do the simple things. We do the right read all the time, or most of the time, whether it’s a Cup game or regular season game or, you know, in the Finals, we know where each other is supposed to be. We work on reads all the time in practice, and regardless of how the game is going or the shots are falling, it’s all about making the right read, and you know, the game will reward that.”
The strong response to the weekend of criticism shouldn’t be a surprise as Tatum essentially did the same thing on Opening Night against the New York Knicks.
He spent an entire summer being criticized for having an “easy path” to his first NBA title, being corny while he celebrated the achievement, having “no aura,” and then spending a good amount of time watching from the sidelines as he earned his second Olympic Gold Medal with Team USA.
