Jayson Tatum saw the most complicated defensive scheme he had all season last Wednesday.
The Warriors trapped him around every ball screen, played something akin to a box-and-one late and never let him off the hook. He escaped from an 0-for-4 start, hitting nine of his next 13 shot attempts before Golden State coaxed him into shooting a tough mid-ranger trailing by four with one minute left. The Warriors won, limiting Tatum to 32 points on 10-of-20 shooting with two assists and four turnovers.
Incomprehensible that teams are still doubling Tatum, and off White one easy pass away no less.. pic.twitter.com/RM2B0z2wSY
— Bobby Manning (@RealBobManning) November 7, 2024
“That’s Jayson Tatum,” Steve Kerr said. “It’s a tough matchup. You just try to make it as hard as possible. He can score at all three levels … hopefully you don’t foul him, hopefully you can meet him before he gets to the rim and you just try to take away the three, but he’s got that step-back and he’s so big that he can shoot over the top of the defense. Like all great players, you just gotta stay with it and not get discouraged when he makes a couple. We played Boston about five years ago, he had (44) points against us. I don’t need to hear about him taking a step. He’s been a great player for a long time.”
Tatum could score since just after birth, and while his points per game decreased from 30.1 to 26.9 in 2023-24, he sacrificed touches and attempts in order to glue together a new-look roster. His efficiency (55.2 eFG%) reached a career-high behind renewed three-point productivity (37.6%) and he posted a personal best in assists (4.9) while cutting his turnovers from 2.9 to 2.5 per game.
This year, after scoring at least 30 points for the third straight game in a comeback win over the Bucks, Tatum has pushed his scoring back up to 30.5 PPG and expanded his playmaking to 5.0 APG. And to quote Joe Mazzulla, his potential assists have spiked to 11.4 after averaging 8.9 last year.That’s without mentioning an improved pace, more free throw attempts and a willingness to screen that make Tatum virtually unstoppable.
Only shooting lulls and his own shot selection have slowed Tatum at times, while his rebounding, defensive moments at their best and his durability make Tatum’s impact the widest of any star in the league today. He’s entered his prime, and this could be the year he finally secures an MVP — his final elusive trophy — for how difficult he’s proving to guard for defenses.
“In the second half, when the game got tight, I think we had five or six over-helps that led to threes,” Doc Rivers said on Sunday. “We had them inside the three-point line, we were gonna live tonight with them taking those twos. They don’t want to take twos, but I’m gonna say maybe 9-10 (possessions) in the second half, where they had the ball in the paint one-on-one, then we over-helped and it led to a three. That’s what they want.”
When the Nets packed the paint on Friday, Tatum pushed the pace in transition, leading his own 8-2 run exclusively on the break, making the critical pass to Sam Hauser late, then scoring or assisting on 5-of-7 possessions late in Milwaukee on Sunday after a slow start an injuring his ankle on a Giannis Antetokounmpo contest. Like other teams, the Bucks sent help, allowing Derrick White and Jrue Holiday to hurt Milwaukee away from Tatum. Charles Lee weighed in on that dilemma in Charlotte:
Got a good answer from Charles Lee about, now that he's on the other side, how opponents balance whether to double Jayson Tatum or play him straight up. #Hornets doubled him often over the past two nights. pic.twitter.com/fs8TUQW8OO
— Bobby Manning (@RealBobManning) November 3, 2024
Tatum, understandably, leads the Celtics in touches and ball time again this year, a credit to his ball-handling growth in two-plus years since he set the NBA Playoff record with 100 turnovers through the 2022 Finals run. Ime Udoka and his staff initially imagined Tatum and Jaylen Brown becoming the team’s playmakers prior to that year in hopes that they could absorb defensive pressure and free teammates. Mazzulla took that one step further the following year as it became clear Tatum would lead the offense.
The Celtics ramped-up his three point volume, which accomplished three things: drawing defenses higher against his pull-up threat, increasing the number of possessions where he’d get a shot off, rather than turning it over, and raising the expected points on his shots. He’s attempting 11.6 threes per game this year, and has hit a new high in efficiency (56.9 eFG%).
Tatum also found himself off the ball early on Sunday. Brown and Holiday hunted Damian Lillard, White slipping a screen playing off Holiday in the corner before missing at the rim. Payton Pritchard entered with five straight points on the ball then Holiday took Lillard to the rim. Tatum took four shots in the first quarter, three of them threes, and one coming off an off-ball action with Neemias Queta that Pritchard set up. Later, he hit the decisive three in catch-and-shoot position spacing in the wing. Tatum will do that too.
“That’s the problem,” Mazzulla said when asked earlier this year about Tatum’s stats in the second Charlotte game. “They doubled him and he made the right play every time. They need to put potential assists and screen assists on here. I thought he made the right play almost every time. I thought he played a great game, I mean, he shot 17 free throws … just be patient and read the defense, sometimes they hit, sometimes they didn’t. There was even a couple possessions where he caught it without space, and he dribbled out to create space so that the hit was bigger so that he could see the two-on-one read. I thought he had tremendous poise … (and) an understanding of how the defense was guarding him.”
In the first Milwaukee game, Mazzulla pointed out a play where Tatum felt out how the Bucks where playing his screen and flipped sides so he could pop into a three. He did so similarly against the Nets to escape their ball pressure, popping into the corners away from White, who he’s formed a regular two-man game with, to shoot the easiest open three possible. Tatum and Mazzulla talk often about how the Celtics play to attack matchups, and that’s naturally set up more scoring opportunities within the flow of the offense for Tatum. He’s passing the ball to White 16.8 times per game, while White finds him back 19.5 times each night on plays that lead to 48.6% shooting for Tatum and 45.9% when they lead to threes.
Then, there’s the pace. Boston still ranks relatively low, 19th, with 98.86 possessions per game, but have accumulated the fourth-most possessions in the league in total. Tatum is playing at a 99.7 pace, up from 98.64 last year, and posted dazzling transition numbers prior to Sunday’s win. He averaged 1.58 points per possession on those plays, ranking in the 95th percentile and shooting 70%, while creating 3.8 possessions per game.
Trailing 69-62 on Friday, he ran ahead of White after his steal and drew free throws, grabbed a Ben Simmons tip-out rebound that Tatum ran into a layup, turned a Hauser steal into free throws on the break then forced his own steal that he dunked the other way to flip the game in the third quarter. He understood that he needed to open the game up with Boston’s half court offense stagnating. In the open floor, he can be a menace.
The counting stats, shooting variance and even on-off numbers that have grown less staggering since the Celtics became more stacked will make another difficult case for Tatum to stand alone as MVP when the season ends. Nikola Jokic’s production for a under-manned Nuggets team will loom large, as always.
This year will still create as compelling of a case as there’ll ever be, between the winning, efficiency and impact in all areas following his Finals run. Awards often get passed down for past accomplishment, and after the doubts that surrounded Tatum-led Boston teams in the past, he’s leaving little doubt in this team winning nightly. Without Kristaps Porziņģis, with teammates missing time after the Olympic and Finals MVP snubs, an all-important narrative is forming too.
“(Impacting) all the areas that stats show and all the areas that stats don’t show,” Tatum said, explaining his approach earlier this year. “Being the best screener, cutting, creating advantages for my teammates, and obviously getting people involved, making players and rebounding.”
