Welcome to “One Play!” Throughout the 2021-22 NBA season, our TSN staff will break certain possessions from certain games and unveil the curtains to reveal their greater significance.
Today, Celtics star Jason Tatum is in the spotlight.
Context: In match 1 between the Celtics and the Nets there was no lack of excitement.
The Celtics led by double-digit players in the final quarter, but Kyrie Irving came to life to bring the Nets back into the game. Irving scored 18 of his top 39 points in the fourth quarter and scored 3 points with 45.9 seconds left to give the Nets a three-point lead.
Jaylan Brown responded with a punch, setting the stage for a wild ending with Jason Tatum sneaking up behind the Nets to mark a winning buzzer game.
How did the Nets lose track of Tatum from everyone? Let’s take a closer look.
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The game:
TATUM WINNER 🥶 pic.twitter.com/BMqJYiolNt
– NBA TNT (@NBAonTNT) April 17, 2022
Breakdown: Al Horford deflects a missed three-pointer from Kevin Durant and quickly passes the ball to Derrick White, who then passes it to Brown. With the expiration of the clock, Brown wasted no time attacking the basket, fighting the younger Goran Dragic and attracting an additional defender in Bruce Brown.
Bruce Brown’s double does not allow Jaylan Brown to reach the edge, but Jaylan Brown calmly stops and turns in the opposite direction.
Now is the time to take stock of who everyone on the Nets is defending.
Irving has White on the right wing, Durant takes Tatum at the top of the perimeter, Nicholas Claxton is at Horford in the low block, and Dragic stays at Jaylan Brown.
Bruce Brown? He parks in the paint in case Jaylan Brown tries to attack again.
This means that no one guards Smart, who becomes the biggest target possible by waving his arms around.
Noticing Smart, who scored 20 points in a 4-for-9 shot out of 3 points this year, Brown kicked the ball to him out of the corner of his eye. This attracts not one, but two defenders in Bruce Brown and Claxton.
Smart is not satisfied with the shot. Instead, he fakes Brown and Claxton into the air and makes a dribble to the basket.
It gets interesting here.
Not wanting Smart to drive in a straight line or Horford to roll to the paint, Dragic turned from Brown. White moves to the right corner, but Irving helps him away from him.
The Nets must be in a decent position, but … they forget about Tatum.
Both Dragic and Irving are focused on the ball, and Durant loses sight of Tatum as he cuts to the basket.
Smart passes it to Tatum, Tatum spins around Irving and scores the ball to give the Celtics the buzzer victory.
Why it matters: A few things.
First, the obvious: Boston overcame a monstrous game by Irving and took a 1-0 lead. A game like this can be the difference in a series.
Second, a lot of patience from Smart. As Draymond Green noted after the match, the old Smart may have been content with a contested 3-pointer, but the new Smart was wearing a dotted hat.
And there is a difference in the Celtics team. Last year, Marcus Smart would make this shot. His name made him buy and be the smart Marcus everyone loved from Ok State. BEAUTIFUL! I look like a real PG again! That made it special!
– Draymond Green (@ Money23Green) April 17, 2022
Even Tatum, who has been with Smart for five seasons, thought he would shoot him.
“We all thought Smart would shoot him,” Tatum said after the game. “So hit at the last second, just break the glass … But when he made this dribble, we just made eye contact and he made a great pass, and I just had to go to bed.”
Third, the winner of Tatum’s game will attract a lot of attention, but it should not overshadow Boston’s last defensive position.
The Celtics finished the season with the best defense rating in the league. Even without Robert Williams, who was both the defensive player of the year and the candidate for all defensive positions, they have the intelligence, length and flexibility to fit and embarrass almost anyone.
They displayed it in the previous possession. Smart put pressure on Irving as Horford abandoned Bruce Brown to double him. (Do you think the Celtics wanted to get the ball out of his hands?) Durant got the ball with 4.0 seconds left on the strike clock, which is usually enough time to create something, but Tatum defended it perfectly, forcing him into a hard-contested experience for 3 points.
It doesn’t get much better than this:
@celtics were defense â„–1 in the NBA during the regular season and they showed it in their last defensive possession of Game 1.
See the whole sequence leading to Jason Tatum’s #TissotBuzzerBeater to win it! pic.twitter.com/c9CU2akJ4Y
– NBA (@NBA) April 17, 2022
By the way, Tatum was not special in attack, finished with 31 points and scored the winning game. He helped the Celtics limit Durant to 23 points by shooting 9 for 24 from the pitch. There aren’t many players in the league today who can influence the game at both ends of the level that Tatum can.
It’s only one game, but the Celtics have shown why they are a legitimate contender to leave the Eastern Conference.
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