Tatum placing team goals before his own
NEW YORK — The Celtics raced past the New York Knicks on Saturday to reduce their magic number to 19 for the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference, another indication they have fully regained their swagger the past few weeks after a stretch of shaky basketball.
With 25 games left in the regular season, including a handful of showcase games, there’s an opportunity for Jayson Tatum to close in on his first MVP award. It is something, he has freely admitted, that is one of his career goals.
Tatum wasn’t at his best offensively in the 116102 win at Madison Square Garden. He scored 19 points with 6 rebounds, 6 assists, and 2 steals as Boston led for the final 21 minutes, 53 seconds. Tatum didn’t need to be a dominant scorer, as Jaylen Brown scored 30 points and Kristaps Porzingis added 22.
Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla played Tatum 43 minutes, 22 seconds, his second-highest total of the season. And the coach had a specific reason for keeping his All-Star on the floor.
“I thought today was a beautiful display of basketball from Jayson that will go underlooked and will not go into the most valuable category,” Mazzulla said. “But his ability to control the game with his pick-and-roll pace, his pick-and-roll passing; his defense, he put himself on [All-Star Jalen] Brunson. And the poise of welcoming the two-onones [double teams] and creating for others was great.
“My hats off to him for knowing that’s a way for us to win.”
The biggest revelation that emerged from AllStar Weekend was that Tatum believes MVP voters — i.e. the media — still hold his 2022 NBA Finals performance against him. In that series loss to the Warriors, Tatum averaged 21.5 points, 6.8 rebounds, and 7 assists. Those aren’t exactly terrible numbers until you include his 31 percent shooting on 2-pointers.
The Warriors blitzed Tatum in that series and he struggled to score at the rim against Andrew Wiggins, who was the second-best player in that series next to Stephen Curry. It’s rather stunning to consider the impact of Wiggins in that series, considering he hasn’t been the same player since.
Tatum has taken his game to the next level. He may not express himself often about his personal goals or touch on how the pundits assess his game, but he does notice what people say.
“Individual awards are important,” he said at All-Star Weekend in Indianapolis. “I’m not going to say that they’re not. Everybody wants to win a championship, but you want to be rewarded for the work that you put in, for the things that you go out there and do on the court. They have individual awards for a reason. As a competitor, as a player, you grew up watching your favorite players winning MVP and First-Team All-NBA and all that.
“Of course you want to win those things. But you can’t take precedence over playing the right way and doing the things that you have to do in order for your team to essentially be the best team in the league and have a chance to win a championship. Would I love to win? Yes. But apparently us losing the Finals two years ago affects what people think of me now, so I guess I’ve got some ground to make up. Everybody who has a vote, they vote — the criteria is different. Everybody thinks differently. Right, wrong, or indifferent, it is what it is. You can’t tell people what they should look for when they vote. That’s the beauty of it.”
There is always going to be more expected from Tatum because of his athletic prowess, potential and accomplishments at such a young age.
The question is does Tatum need to be the Celtics’ toughest, most resilient player for Boston to win a championship. Does Tatum need to play with more of an edge? He has improved immensely on helping the Celtics with defense, rebounding, and assists, even on nights when his shot isn’t falling. But there is one NBA legend who would like to see more.
“A lot of pressure is on Jayson because he’s the best player,” said TNT analyst and Naismith Hall of Famer Charles Barkley. “And if you look at that team last year and I’m sitting there saying you guys are talking about how tough Marcus [Smart] is, and then you make the trade and say we’re bringing in Jrue Holiday in for toughness. What about your best player? He’s got to be the toughest one.
“That’s the key. The one thing your best player has to be is mentally tough because he’s the guy. That’s just the way it is and Jayson is the guy. We can’t be talking about how important Marcus Smart is to the team. We can’t be talking about how important Jrue Holiday is to the team. Wait a minute. One guy is All-NBA . . . That’s the responsibility.”
Tatum’s responsibility is leading the Celtics to their first title in 16 years, by any means necessary. That means he has to be more of a playmaker, defender, rebounder, distributor, and floor leader than at any point of his career.
But it seems like he needs to do something more, maybe one of those signature scoring nights on the big stage, maybe a triple-double or fueling the Celtics to the 60-plus win plateau. More is expected from Tatum because he has the chance to be an all-time great, and his road to the MVP began Saturday at Madison Square Garden.