Jayson Tatum is a victim of he and Celtics’ own lofty standards… while surging Lakers and Warriors will look to prove experience is king in postseason
Jayson Tatum’s post-All Star Game performance is one that almost every NBA player can take pride in.
Despite his somewhat decreased efficiency and occasionally poor performance in the fourth quarter, the story surrounding him has recently suggested a small problem.
After a victory over the Trail Blazers on Monday night, it was brought to the attention of Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla that Tatum was not performing up to his customary high standards. This statement encapsulated the difference between expectation and reality rather nicely.
The coach said, “He had 26 [points], eight [rebounds], and five [assists].
“You said we couldn’t stop [Tyrese] Maxey when he did that.”
It’s true that Tatum isn’t making as many shots as he did prior to the All-Star break.
Prior to his 38-point outburst against Portland on Tuesday, his scoring had dropped somewhat from 27.1 points to 25.3 points, while his field goal percentage had dropped from 47.5 percent to 45.9 percent in the 10 games that followed.
In light of Jayson Tatum’s performance last night, Joe Mazzulla supports him.
“Had twenty-six, eight, five… You mentioned that we couldn’t stop Maxey when he did that.
Furthermore, and maybe more significantly, the former Duke product has occasionally had difficulty in the clutch. In the fourth quarter of the Celtics’ crushing of the Cavaliers, he was one of nine from the field. A few days later, he missed a wide-open corner three-pointer that would have given Boston a late lead in their ultimate defeat to the Nuggets.
Should this two-week period be deemed a slump, it would not be observed among players with lower talent levels and on teams with lower expectations.
However, when you are the top player on the NBA’s best team (based on record), it’s enough to ruin your chances of winning MVP and cast doubt on your team’s championship history.
Mazzulla said to reporters prior to the Celtics’ game against the Knicks last month, “When you possess a great deal of skill, you should, in my opinion, push them and hold them to a very high level.
Fair enough, that is also happening in public right now as hoops fans and the media pick apart whether a 51-14 powerhouse can continue.
The big picture indicates that the Celtics should aim to take their chances after reaching the NBA Finals, at the absolute least. They are the 9.5-game favorites to win the NBA, have the greatest net rating in the league by 3.7 points, and are currently leading the East.
However, for a club hoping to be voted the greatest in the NBA, these past few weeks have brought up some very real questions.
Among them: is Tatum a good enough clutch player for a title-winning team?
As writer Tom Haberstroh noted in a Substack post from March 6, he’d made just 38.3 percent of his attempts in clutch time (five minutes left, game within five points) over the last three seasons, and had converted an even more frigid 19 percent on three-pointers in that span. (He’s apparently been extremely clutch in the postseason, though in a much, much smaller sample size).
Another question: is Tatum good enough, period, to be the No. 1 on a championship squad? We know the Celtics are a great team, as Jaylen Brown is as good a No. 2 as they come and Kristaps Porzingis, Jrue Holiday and Derrick White are wholly overqualified for their more supporting roles.
Playoff basketball, though, often comes down to who has the best player on the court. Can Tatum outplay Nikola Jokic in a seven-game series, or at least go toe to toe with him? The Serbian has outplayed Tatum in both of the team’s regular season meetings this year, which have both been Denver wins.
Ultimately, the answers to the above questions are not necessarily ‘no’ just because of a less-stellar-than-usual couple of weeks, and a tight loss to the defending champs.
But when your goal is lifting the Larry O’Brien trophy, they’re certainly fair to ask.
Can the Lakers and/or Warriors crash the Western Conference playoff equation?
A sort of funny thing is happening in the Western Conference right now.
A young Thunder squad is tied with the Nuggets at 45-20, while the Timberwolves are just a half-game behind. And yet, the bookies don’t even remotely believe in Oklahoma City and Minnesota, led by Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Anthony Edwards respectively.
While the defending champion Nuggets are second-favorites to win the title at +390 according to FanDuel odds, the Thunder are in fifth at an extremely distant +1700, while Minnesota is all the way back in eighth at +3200 (it should be noted that Karl-Anthony Towns is out another month at least following a meniscus tear).
It’s not unsurprising that the Nuggets, with their playoff pedigree and arguably the league’s best player in Jokic, are projected ahead of their competition. But the gap is striking, and shows just how much important experience and past results are weighed when the calendars turn to April.
What then of the Lakers and Warriors, two of the league’s most seasoned teams who are still jostling to make the playoffs?
