Jayson Tatum watched the ball bounce in front of him, pumped the brakes on Jalen McDaniels, up-faked LaMelo Ball and freed himself for one more three. His 51 points came with showmanship supported by spacing and easier baskets that the Celtics worked generated in the first half.
The Celtics followed Tatum’s lead through his highest-scoring game of the season, deflecting a feisty Hornets effort, 130-118, after he hit 5-of-7 from the field in the fourth quarter. He shot 7-for-8 in the paint, improving on his 70% efficiency at the rim this season, a credit to a spacing-obsessed offense that’s working to create easier shots for its star. Tatum shoots more efficiently than Domantas Sabonis and Zion Williamson inside, and only Giannis Antetokounmpo and LeBron James finish at higher rates among players with 270 attempts.
“It’s tough to stop him,” Terry Rozier said, reflecting C.J. McCollum’s sentiment last week. “Nothing you can do about it.”
On an afternoon where Tatum also buried 7-of-11 from above the break and added 14 free throws, that became the case. He scored with the starting double-big combination. He scored with the bench unit. He scored on the roll, from mid-range and on the ball. Tatum possesses so many outlets, he could toy with Charlotte at times, tossing a left-handed lob to Robert Williams III from an off-balance position driving to his left early.
The best defenses this season forced him into pull-up jumpers and over-dribbling, which didn’t work on Monday. The Hornets tried doubling at the point of attack, and Tatum responded by trusting Derrick White into the short roll, bouncing around Williams III handoffs and empowering secondary playmakers on the wings to hit shots and pass. Four players dishes five assists in the win, including Tatum, who lost six on a laser pass to White.
“(We) just make the right play,” Marcus Smart told CLNS Media in Brooklyn. “You’ve got to have a rim threat, and then you just find the open guys if (teams double team). We have the advantage if J.T.’s driving and he has a defender on him, and they bring an extra defender, that means somebody’s open and we just got to find him.
“Once we do that, and ironically, the ball finds J.T. again, and he’s the one who passed it, the team’s in scramble mode. They’re trying to stop every threat that they see and they forget about J.T. That’s just how we’ve got to play. When we play that way, it’s tough to beat us.”
Tatum attempts 4.1 isolation possessions per game, down from 4.7 each of the last two seasons. He replaced those with transition runs (4.4), 12th among NBA players, and he rolls nearly twice per game after averaging 0.8 each night last season. The Celtics score 1.29 points per possession when Tatum initiates the break (79th percentile).
His cuts produce 1.21 PPP after attempting fewer than 1.0 per game in 2020-21, although tracking data only accounts for possessions that end in a make, miss or turnover. The change in volume showed an increased willingness to move away from the ball. Sometimes, his cuts don’t lead to his own shots and free others.
While Tatum embraced other areas of his game, Joe Mazzulla structured a five-out offensive system and positioned threats at every position around him. Malcolm Brogdon shoots 49% on drives and 45.5% on catch-and-shoot threes. Jaylen Brown finishes 71.1% around the basket, better than Tatum. Al Horford hits 44.2% from three and Grant Williams converts 40.5% 3PT. Smart, White and Williams III all make plays and finish.
The Celtics even ran inverted sets to send their perimeter players downhill while big men passed the ball in recent games. Mazzulla doesn’t call many plays, stepping in to emphasize spacing with a few in last week’s win over Brooklyn. The Celtics typically lean on creativity and reads, making their historic offensive start around Tatum all the more impressive.
Solving Hornets double teams at the point of attack called back to lessons learned around 2021 for Tatum. Beating the Nets’ paint presences required skills he’ll recall again on Thursday against the Warriors.
“Continue to move, create space, move without the ball, set screens,” Tatum told CLNS. “If I had an ISO, they were sending an extra, blitzing the ball screen. Just things that we are aware of going into games and just make the right read, draw two, drag them up, find the open man, play four-on-three, pass up a good shot for a great shot.”
Tatum no longer ranks among the top-20 players receiving double teams, which speaks to the way he and the Celtics can react to them, and the changing blueprint on how to slow Boston.
Few can execute it effectively, needing multiple big defenders to stack in the paint like Ben Simmons and Claxton, funneling the ball toward Smart and White to shoot jump shots.
The Celtics have generated the sixth-most open and wide open threes in the league, passing out of crowds and mid-range looks to shoot. They’ll also take tough, guarded threes too, ranking second in three-point attempts against tight coverage, needing more quality looks closer to the basket like in Charlotte.
Claxton floated away from Williams III and Luke Kornet in help position, giving the big man eight points while holding Tatum to 7-for-22 shooting. Brogdon’s perimeter shot creation saved the game, along with a dominant defensive effort. When the Nets showed two to Tatum at the basket, White ran to the corner, abandoned Nic Claxton and hit a three.
The last Warriors game lacked that movement, though Williams III and Horford sat. Jonathan Kuminga, Klay Thompson, Anthony Lamb and Draymond Green stayed attached to Tatum while he moved off the ball, which got stuck elsewhere and didn’t find Tatum until late in the clock. When he caught the ball around the rim, multiple Warriors defenders stood close enough to collapse and force a bad shot or kick-out to a heave.
Horford and Williams III started together for the third time in Monday’s win, two players the Celtics didn’t have available last month in San Francisco, while Williams III played hurt in the Finals. They enhanced Boston’s defense playing together, boasting a 99 defensive rating that would lead the league, in 11 games and 87 minutes.
They improved to score 111.8 points per 100 possessions in Charlotte (+12.8 net rating), which increases to 118.6 when paired with Tatum, above the historic mark the Celtics built as a team early this season. Mazzulla lauded Boston’s 1.34 expected PPP when Horford and Williams III played. If they didn’t spread the floor for Tatum, they probably wouldn’t play together when fully healthy, and the Celtics look ready to embrace size with spacing.
“J.T. gets a lot of attention. They try to make it as difficult as they can and crowd it for him,” White told CLNS in Brooklyn. “It’s on other guys to stay spaced, cut, be in the corners, be in the right positions and just be ready to make the play after that. Obviously, there were some possessions where we didn’t have great spacing and the opposite is when we did the right things and got great looks.”
