Jayson Tatum Game Winner Adds to Underrated Last Second Record

BOSTON — Jakob Poetl put-backs and shot put floaters poured into the Celtics’ basket 16 times before his potential game-tying free throw rolled out, costing him a career-high and alongside RJ Barrett’s pair of chicken nugget-awarding misses at the line, the Raptors blew a chance to stun the Celtics the same way the Hawks did on Tuesday. Barrett missed four late free throws, his last one thwarting a chance for the Raptors to take a three-point lead with 59 seconds left.

That allowed Jaylen Brown, playing with five fouls, to tie the game with a drop-off pass to Neemias Queta. On the following possession, Jayson Tatum lined up Ochai Agbaji, who fell and left Tatum wide open for a free throw line jumper for the win. Tatum hit the glass left of the basket and walked to the bench facing overtime.

Five minutes of game time later, Tatum received rare redemption with a tough heave that fell from behind the three-point line to take the game, 126-123, in overtime. The contrasting plays pitted facts against feelings, as Tatum scored his 11th game-tying or go-ahead shot in the final five seconds of regulation or overtime since 2020, the most in the league. He’s taken so many, including last week to end regulation against the Nets, that it’s created the sense that Tatum struggles in that spot, when he’s among the best in the league. Even Tatum felt that.

“It felt good to finally hit one of those,” he said. “Obviously, after the horrible miss I had at the end of the regulation, it felt good to bounce back and hit the shot for the win.”

The feeling stems from a cold streak stretching back to his last game-winner, the back court play where he rushed into the front court, caught a pitch from Marcus Smart and sunk a three to beat the Sixers in 2023. Tatum missed 11 straight game-winning or tying shots after that, an overtime layup against the Knicks, a late try in Boston’s awful 2023 loss at Houston, a baseline fadeaway in the final days of that season at Philadelphia, a three before overtime at Golden State last year, a mid-ranger against the Pistons, who were trying to break their historic losing streak, tough mid-rangers against Minnesota and Denver, then a three late in the team’s collapse Atlanta collapse in March. Last week’s missed three before overtime against Brooklyn was his only chance this year before Saturday.

In the Hawks game, the Celtics went on to utilize Brown, who hit a go-ahead mid ranger before Dejounte Murray won the game the other way. Saturday’s final play might’ve landed in his hands had Davion Mitchell not pushed Brown down around Al Horford’s screen away from Tatum with the ball. The Celtics had 20 seconds to burn, and while Joe Mazzulla often keeps it simple at the buzzer, ensuring Boston gets a shot off and doesn’t give the team one in the other direction, Brown, Tatum and Mazzulla all said the Celtics had options on the play. Ironically, a call that gave Boston more variety ended with Tatum tossing up a shot that would’ve left many shaking their head if he missed it, but this one fell.

“I honestly thought they were gonna call a foul,” Tatum said. “I really paused for a second, I thought it was gonna be a late whistle. From my view, running off the double screen pin-down, I felt like (Brown) got knocked off-balance and I thought it was gonna be a foul. So I waited for a second, they didn’t call it, then I wanted to wait for the very last shot … that’s all we talked about really was make sure we take the last shot.”

Tatum’s final shot vaulted him to 24 points to go with 11 rebounds and nine assists, the fourth time in 14 games he reached nine assists and the second straight night he fell one stat point short of his fourth career triple-double. He’s now averaging 5.9 assists per game, his career high, while scoring just south of 30 points per game on 46.1% shooting (38.1%). Wednesday marked his fifth straight game with six or more assists, setting up Horford for a three-point play that broke the tie with 5:18 left and Horford’s go-ahead three with 1:45 remaining. Tatum posted his second game with 35 points and 10 assists this season on Wednesday, something no other player has done.

With that blend of scoring, passing, rebounding and defense, along with tough shot-making, Tatum has become the only player in the league to excel in every category. It’ll become his case for MVP, alongside what looks like top-end team success for the Celtics, against the overwhelming statistical output and singular weight that Nikola Jokić carries. A glance at the other stars around the league shows Tatum’s relative excellence on clutch shot attempts. Luka Doncic is 4-of-23 since 2020 began, Jokić is 6-of-26, LeBron James is 0-of-19, DeMar DeRozan is 7-of-33 and Steph Curry is 6-of-16. Tatum is 9-of-34 after Saturday.

“Him taking that shot, that’s a shot we see him working on,” Horford said. “It’s something he’s confident in and we’re confident in him … going into second overtime there, that wouldn’t have been it … him continuing to put in that work, and especially this year, I’ve seen him work on those same types of moves shooting that shot quite a bit in practice, so it paid off big for us tonight.”