With Celtics’ Jayson Tatum back, what was a plucky team could be formidable in the playoffs
BOSTON — Jayson Tatum’s dunk, near the end of a rusty first half, sent a message to the Eastern Conference, but the NBA as a whole wasn’t paying attention Friday night. For one evening, the talk wasn’t of tanking, or alleged cap circumvention, or NBA employees’ troubling — and, to be fair, still only alleged — gambling connections. The TD Garden’s parquet floor, the Boston Celtics—one of the league’s two most storied teams—and the Dallas Mavericks—which featured New England’s own Cooper Flagg—were the center of attention.
The building was alive, there were a lot of credentials, and TD was rocking. You also couldn’t stop looking at Tatum. LeBron James could not either. Tatum leapt to return Payton Pritchard’s missed jumper two hundred and ninety-nine days after he was crumpled on the floor of Madison Square Garden with a torn right Achilles and his franchise in doubt.
The putback seemed to get Tatum going; after missing his first six shots from the floor, he made six of his next 10, en route to 15 points, 12 rebounds and seven assists. This season, Jaylen Brown, who is in the midst of his own star turn, scored 24, 7, and 7. After a rapid roster overhaul last summer, the Celtics were better than anyone anticipated, and now they have their two J’s back. That should be frightening for the rest of the East. (Kevin Garnett, of the “Anything is Possible” Garnetts, had some thoughts.)
This is not a diss of the Detroit Pistons, who’ve been the conference’s best team all season, or of the Cleveland Caveliers, who went all in on trying to salvage their season by getting James Harden at the trade deadline, or of the New York Knicks, who’ve been up and down for a while, but still have Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns and a real chance for an extended playoff run. They each have superstars and will be tough to beat.
However, if Tatum and his five all-NBA appearances are incorporated into Boston’s already surprising season, it could upend all of those hopes. Tatum and Brown have already been on the league’s biggest stage, and won. None of the current greatest players in Detroit, New York, or Cleveland have. During his most difficult rehab phases, when doubt and slow progress were closing in, the Celtics rallied around their star during those times. Pro athletes spend their entire lives in the spotlight. However, this also includes instances in which their bodies fail them due to age or injury. With his teammates’ help, and the Celtics’ coaches, and the team’s medical staff, Tatum was able to get off the deck.
He stated on Friday, “I don’t think any athlete thinks they’re going to get hurt.” “At least, I didn’t. I never considered it. I thought I did everything right, took care of my body. I did not tamper with the game. So, when it happened … really, it knocked me on my ass. It simply caused me to reconsider a lot of things. I had an idea of how my career was going to go, and one night, it changed.
I realized that you know many great athletes who have experienced career ups and downs. But it’s another thing to live it. The things I want to accomplish are still in front of me, but how you get there looks different for everybody.”
Because of that, I share the view that thinking Tatum’s return will cause friction between him and Brown is silly. Two years ago, Brown won MVP of the NBA Finals. He’s more than proven himself. I don’t think Tatum sees this as 1 and 1A. This team and this season will follow Brown’s path, which has thus far been pretty amazing.
After trading away Jrue Holiday, Kristaps Porziis, and Anfernee Simons before the deadline, Boston will now be without center Nikola Vuevi, who was acquired from the Chicago Bulls in the Simons deal, for at least a month after breaking a finger in the first minute of a game against Dallas. But Brown has put the team on his back, averaging career highs in points, rebounds and assists. Tatum will get in where he can fit in.
Tatum admitted that he has some ego when he said, “I’m one of the — humbly — best basketball players in the world” a few years ago, after he scored 16 in the fourth quarter of Game 6 against the Philadelphia 76ers after rebounding from three poor quarters. The remaining 449 players in this league also do so. And he’s aware of where this team, this season, gets its juice.
An aspirant front office member of an Eastern Conference team said, speaking openly about another team, “JT is intelligent enough to understand that JB is Batman for the moment, and he has to be Robin.” It will take Tatum some time, maybe a few weeks, to find his wind and his legs again. How coincidental that the Celtics just happen to have six weeks of regular-season basketball left to get their superstar forward right before the playoffs, now that he’s back on the court. He was a +20 in 27 minutes Friday.
The Pistons are second in the league in defensive rating. But Boston was already second in the league in offensive rating, and they just got their six-time All-Star back. The Cavaliers have been ridiculous on D since getting Keon Ellis from the Kings at the trade deadline; Tatum averages 24.3 points per game in the postseason. Before Tatum’s injury, the Knicks were beating Boston in their spring series. Boston didn’t get much at all out of the ailing Porziņģis.
But general manager Brad Stevens brought in veteran big Luka Garza from the Minnesota Timberwolves, and drafted guard Hugo González at the end of the first round. Additionally, Neemias Queta has performed admirably in his first season as the permanent starter. Still, this may not work, of course. Michael Jordan’s return to the Bulls in March 1995, after he spent a year-plus trying to make the major leagues as a baseball player, ended with Chicago losing to Orlando in the Eastern semis, and the Magic carrying ex-Bull Horace Grant off the floor on their shoulders. But the Jordan comparison isn’t really apt.
Jordan was away from basketball for almost two years, having played his last basketball in June of ’93 in the finals. He needed a long summer in 1995, between shooting “Space Jam,” to get his bearings. Before the game, Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla said that Tatum had Achilles surgery just hours after getting hurt. Mazzulla thought Tatum would do everything he could to play this year. He has, too. “I think there’s a sense of gratitude, and a sense of perspective,” Mazzulla said. “At the end of the day, you saw a guy at his most vulnerable state, and you’re seeing that journey back. And the journey may start today, but there’s no end game to that.”
Humbly, Tatum wasn’t one of the best players in the world Friday. However, Queta, who plays center in a very different way than Porziis, ran up and down the floor with abandon and finished with 16 points and 15 rebounds. Brown was also dominant, and he was more than just impactful. And it was Gino Time after another blowout win, and everything seems possible again, where the team with more banners than any other team in the history of this league looks to be, again, on the hunt.
