[Noa Dalzell 🏀] Joe Mazzulla on Jayson Tatum in the first round: “I thought his defense was tremendous… his defensive rebounding was good, and I thought the discipline to fight taking difficult shots versus making the extra pass, and I thought he showed that.”
by bryscoon
8 Comments
“Fight taking difficult shots” my god, the perfect summary for Jayson Tatum lol
There’s a reason Jayson Tatum had the highest +/- of all players in the playoffs
Honestly curious how ballistic Tatum would go if you put him on the wizards or pistons
Joe’s actually right on this and not just fluffing Tatum up. When Tatum actually wants to play defense he can be one of the best. However, the TNT commentators definitely caught him being lazy AF on that one play last game. When Tatum isn’t chucking up brick ISO shots he’s good, but he’s cost the Celtics *so* many games in his career by playing selfish and frankly low IQ ball.
2024’s version of Tatum where he shares the ball and passes well has been fantastic. How does someone gameplan for a guy that can drop 30 with ease if you don’t double him, but can also pass out of a double to guys like Brown and White who can throw up 30 with ease? Not to mention Jrue the sleeping giant, snipermeister Sam Hauser, and Al’s shown he’s still got what it takes to win.
Jayson Tatum does all the little things that leads to winning, no one outside of Boston will recognize it and how great he and this team is until after they win the chip and continue to cook the league.
His defense was arguably some of the best on the team in that series. Even game 2 when everybody sucked his defense was really good.
They all looked great last night, especially Jaylen and Derrick of course, but Jayson’s shot was a bit off? He missed a few free throws, and only had 16 points.
But a blowout win is a blowout win, and I guess I should recognize that it’s very good that Tatum doesn’t think he has to do everything himself.
There’s a reason he got a triple double in the first game of the series. They were sending lots of help at him pretty much constantly. He did a great job playmaking and locking in on defense. If he was forcing it, people would be going ballistic