Tatum vows to bounce back
Celtics star knows he must rebound for team to win title
Jayson Tatum knows he has taken his game to a new level in his fifth NBA season, pushing his way into the league’s top echelon of playmakers as the Boston Celtics’ go-to scorer.
The three-time All-Star also knows at times he hasn’t been good enough against the Golden State Warriors during the NBA Finals and must find a way to elevate his play if he hopes to help Boston capture the franchise’s 18th championship.
He doesn’t mind the spotlight, or the burden that comes with it.
The Celtics had an opportunity to take a commanding 3-1 NBA Finals lead and drop the Warriors into a hole only one team in 36 tries has ever dug out of — the 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers, who rallied
from 3-1 to beat Golden State in seven games.
Instead, Boston went collectively cold late in the fourth quarter as the Warriors’ Stephen Curry put the final touches on what may be his signature playoff moment in front of a stunned TD Garden crowd.
Tatum tried, but this time couldn’t match Curry’s dominance.
He finished with 23 points, 11 rebounds and six assists. But Tatum had his second-worst shooting performance of the series — just 8-for-23 from the field — and didn’t take care of the ball; he had six of Boston’s 16 turnovers
that led to 19 Golden State points.
He also was a virtual non-factor in the final quarter, scoring just three points on 1-for-5 shooting with a turnover. It hurt most after the Celtics took 94-90 lead only to miss their six shots during a 10-0 Warriors run. Boston never led again. As Tatum has gone, so have the Celtics in this series.
In the Celtics’ two wins he is averaging 27 points and shooting 45 percent from the field. In their two losses those numbers drop to 22 points per game and 34 percent from the field.