Alpha Approach on Full Display as Tatum Outduels Durant
Sunday, March 6th 1:00 pm EST
Jayson Tatum is taking the alpha approach. That’s how Ime Udoka described his 24 year old superstar after Tatum put on a show Sunday afternoon in the Garden, scoring 54 points (34 in the second half) while leading the Celtics to a 126-120 win over Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, and the Brooklyn Nets. Boston has obviously had some big wins lately - perhaps none bigger than their takedown of the Grizzlies on Thursday night - but this game felt like a real measuring stick. The Nets’ record may not indicate it, but they are still the betting favorites to win the Eastern Conference (despite having a losing record on the season and currently slated for the play-in tournament). With a now healthy Kevin Durant alongside Kyrie Irving (at least in road games for now), this team is an offensive juggernaut. The Nets need to find their rhythm and start winning some games; you could tell they wanted this one badly. Yet, on Sunday, the Celtics took their best shot, and came out victorious.
This was a tight, back and forth affair the whole way, and in fact neither team held a double digit lead at any point. Any time one team would build some momentum, it seemed the other would quickly counter back with a run of its own. Boston has been hanging its hat on defense, but they needed their offense today in what turned out to be a shootout. It’s not that the Celtics defense was poor. I actually thought they were good for the most part, they just ran into the best scorer in the world. Durant hasn’t missed a beat since returning from injury, in just his second game back he tallied 37/6/8 on 12/21 shooting and it felt like everything was tightly contested. As he’s done for his entire career, KD just made tough shot after tough shot, refusing to let the Celts go on any type of run. The other factor that led to the Nets scoring 120 points was the Celtics allowing 12 offensive rebounds, leading to 21 second chance points. Numerous times, Boston played a great defensive possession, only to give up a backbreaking offensive board that led to an easy putback or a kick out for an open 3; this is something the Celts will need to tidy up.
But it was the Celtics offense that stepped up on Sunday when it was needed, especially down the stretch. Late in the third quarter, the Nets went on an 11-0 run, largely spurred by Tatum resting on the bench, to open up the largest lead of the game for either team, 90-81. But Tatum came back in for the final minute of the third quarter, and righted the ship, leading an 8-0 run to cap off the frame, and see the Celtics pull within a point to enter the 4th. Tatum kept it rolling into the final quarter, as the team played one of their best offensive 4th quarters of the year, tallying 37 points. Brooklyn led by a point with 3 and a half minutes remaining, but the Celtics went on a 13-4 run to put the Nets away for good. The dagger came in the final seconds as Tatum embraced a double team before swinging the ball to Smart who made the extra pass to Jaylen Brown in the corner. Brown pumped his defender, then calmly buried the wide open 3 to put the Celtics up 6. Brown, who was coming back from a game off with a sprained ankle suffered on Tuesday, didn’t look his best out there, but made big shots down the stretch when it counted and still finished with 21/4/5. The birthday boy, Marcus Smart had 14 points to go along with 9 assists, and the frontcourt of Rob Williams and Al Horford was spectacular on both ends. It was a down day for the bench, as they only contributed 14 points combined.
That didn’t matter at all, as it was all about Jayson Tatum. JT has been playing at such a high level for the past couple of months, but this was a performance for the ages. He was doing it all on both ends from the get-go, providing everything the Celtics needed. There was simply nothing the Nets could do to stop him, and Tatum was breaking down their defense at every level, burying 8/15 3s, hitting 14/17 from the line, and driving deep into the paint and finishing with force. It was a masterclass from Tatum, and the kind of performance that has people thinking there are MVP trophies in this man’s future. To top it off, Tatum brought it on the defensive end all night, taking on the Durant assignment and making him work for everything. Tatum has now outdueled Ja Morant and Kevin Durant in back to back games and it has been special to watch.
With the win, the Celtics wrap up a 3-0 homestand, improving to 39-27 on the season, now up to 5th place in the East. They’re now only a game behind the Bulls for 4th, and 1.5 games behind the Sixers and Bucks for the 2 seed. Despite the tumultuous start to the season, the Celtics now have the best defensive rating in the league, and are creeping towards the top 10 in offensive rating (they’ve been top 10 since 2022 started). They are looking like the team fans were hoping to see coming into the season, and they’ve recently put to bed any talk of not being able to beat good teams. Now the Celts get two days off, before a meeting with old friends, Terry Rozier and Isaiah Thomas in Charlotte (and Gordon Hayward, although he won’t be playing) on Wednesday night.
Ben Handler