SUPERSTAR
I’ve been saying it for months. “I love this Team.”
We graduated Tatum from “budding superstar” to “Superstar” long ago, but Sunday’s performance against the Philadelphia 76ers really solidified Tatum as a tier 1 player in the NBA.
Stat Line: 51 points on 60% shooting. 13 rebounds, 5 assists, 2 steals, ZERO turnovers. There has never been a stat line like that in NBA playoff history. Tatum now holds the highest point total for a game 7 in NBA history. Bow down Steph.
What I gravitate to though, is the way he did it. Lets back up to game 6. Tatum was literally shooting the Celtics out of the playoffs with a 0 - 13 performance through the first 3 quarters. My biggest criticism of Tatum over the years has been his ability to deliver in clutch close and late situations. Well, I’d say 16 4th quarter points after 3 of his worst quarters in his career would qualify has clutch and late. Not to mention the size cajones you need to keep taking those shots . Some would call it “humbly the best player in the world” confidence.
Now extrapolate that to the way he started game 7. It’s everything we’ve been looking for. He started aggressive and going into the lane. He was basically all they had going offensively until James Harden’s fat ass sucker punched Jaylen and that dope Niang grabbed his leg. From that point of the game it was over. Make no mistake though, as much as Jaylen was the catalyst to take it up a gear Tatum was the backbone, leader, franchise. His inside game set up his outside shot. He started to hunt Embid on the perimeter and BURY daggers in the quitters face.
The 76ers certainly played their part, predictably. James Harden is one of the great losers in NBA history, Doc Rivers was already getting ahead of the failure 3 games prior in the press, and Joel Embid immediately threw his team under the bus on his way to creating his own legacy of loserism.
The greatest fear we had of Tatum is something similar to what we’ve seen from Embid and Harden. A fantastic talent that can ball out in the regular season, but falls short when the lights are the brightest. That’s a tough criticism when you’re 5 -1 all time in game 7’s at the young age of 25. The only loss coming as a rookie to Lebron James. He earned some of it with his performance in last year’s finals, but se la vie. It feels as if that stays in the back of his mind, because when asked to step into the “Kobe “ role this season he has almost always delivered.
Just a quick little Jay-gasim. Can we talk about how he and Jaylen have been talking about the fans, Boston, the Celtics? If it’s all by design I don’t care. I’m here for it. I’m here for all of it. As I said “I Love this team”.
Many are calling this game 7 performance the “Lebron James game 6 vs the Celtics” type of elevation to his career. For that to be true Tatum needs to continue to carry this team through Jimmy Bulter and then finally finish the job. Perhaps even against Lebron himself.