West Coast trips are always a little wacky, especially at this time of year.
Weird shit tends to happen, always has, always will.
Then you add in the fact that these games quite literally mean nothing for the defending champs.
The 1 seed is just as dead today as it was a week ago.
Given the Knicks are dropping like a stone, there is no threat to the 2 seed either.
That has the Celts in this weird limbo zone.
Last night sort of felt like a transaction where everyone got what they wanted.
Well, consider the shit handled.
Let’s talk about it.
That’s why he’s here.
In a matchup like this, KP had to dominate.
So what did he do?
I’m just happy this dude is alive and he’s out there throwing up 20/10s with ease.
But since he’s come back?
KP is 11-15 in the paint (non-restricted area).
That’s good for 73%.
You see the highlights above, that little mid-paint jumper has returned to being an automatic bucket.
Teams will eventually stop conceding 2s, and now Jayson Tatum has the matchup to do whatever he wants.
This is why KP is such a cheat code.
We went through the injury sacrifice last year.
We proved to be worthy.
- Every single second we get to watch Jayson Tatum play basketball for the Boston Celtics is a blessing.
Every dribble, every pass, every shot, every steal or block.
It’s all a blessing.
There are a lot of things I enjoyed about Tatum’s night.
His shot making was insane and he looked as fresh as we’d seen him in weeks.
To me, this was exactly why Jayson Tatum needs rest down the stretch.
When he has rested legs, good fucking luck.
Thankfully, my favorite player did it for my favorite team, so I am allowed to love it.
It was a blowout and the damage was done.
This helped the Celts own 2nd chance points 33-10, as well as points in the paint 50-40.
When it came to the ever important shot margin, the Celts won that 97-84.
When you have 16 OREB and also force 17 TOs, that’s how you win that battle.
Then on the other end, they only had 10 TOs themselves.
After what felt like a pretty tough stretch, I was really impressed with how Sam Hauser played.
Aggressive offensively (all of his 8 points), but in a way that made sense.
His shooting is fine, his dribbling is fine, he’s not favoring it etc.
At least that’s my hope.
Cherish this moment, because we all know how much of a prayer that is.
Then once he came back in, the lead ballooned and that was that.
Over his last 10 games, Tatum has 3 separate games of at least 6 TOs.
He has at least 4 in 7 of his last 10.
If you go back to his last 12, Tatum is averaging 4.1 TOs a night.
The next closest on the team during that span is Jaylen, who’s at 2.6.
In last night’s game, the Celts had 10 as a team, 6 came from Tatum.
It’s really the only negative to his game right now.
It’d be one thing if these were mostly offensive fouls or moving screens, but they aren’t.
It’s lazy passing, poor ball handling, bad entry passes etc.
He’s obviously going to clean it up, I’d just like it to happen already.
In fact, it was the opposite.
He’s going to win the battles in space against players like KP, but everyone else?
I’m still annoyed that the Basketball Gods did not reward this bang out of ball movement.
Considering he’s taking around 9.6 3PA a night, that efficiency has to come back to normal.
His shooting is too important, especially when the Celts are shorthanded.
I mean some of the worst shit you’ll ever see, including the very first possession!
I don’t care if I have to keep putting this shit in every blog.
How is it possible that every single Celtic is absolute dogshit at throwing entry passes?
Especially considering how prominent post up offense is for them?
Every single game we get 2-5 TOs through god awful entry passes.
The guards, the wings, the bigs, it doesn’t matter.
This isn’t something that has only showed up in these meaningless games.
That’s the only goal of this trip in my opinion.
Play like they did last night, and things will be fine.
