Boston Celtics interim head coach Joe Mazzulla shouts from the bench in the second half of an NBA basketball game against the Golden State Warriors, Thursday, Jan. 19, 2023, in Boston. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
Sad News: Joe Mazzulla disappointed as Celtics’ Star man breaks down one crucial moment that led to downfall vs Hawks
Jayson Tatum had the chance to give the Boston Celtics to buzzer-beating victory over the Atlanta Hawks, but his off-balance, heavily contested three-pointer landed well off the mark, sending the game to overtime.
Boston needed just one stop to pull off a thrilling road victory in the extra session, siccing Jrue Holiday on Dejounte Murray—who came into Thurday’s game having hit multiple game-winners this season—with the overtime game clock ticking toward zero. Good offense always beats good defense, though, and Murray’s tough pull-up jumper with .1 seconds remaining propelled the Hawks to a heart-stopping 123-122 win.
Joe Mazzulla on Jayson Tatum’s last play in regulation: “Give JT the ball and have him make a play for us. He got a shot off — got a good look — but it didn’t go.”
Said he took a different approach on the last shot in OT because the Celtics were trailing rather than tied
The Celtics’ top-ranked offense has regularly devolved into Tatum isolations during the biggest moments of close games, and the team’s best player just hasn’t been able to deliver under that pressure cooker.
After going a perfectly acceptable 3-of-7 and scoring 10 points in the last five minutes of regulation and overtime on Thursday, Tatum is now 22-of-61 in clutch situations this season, good for ugly 36.1% shooting, per NBA.com/stats. Of the 30 players who’ve taken at least 50 shots in crunch-time this season, the only ones shooting a worse percentage than Tatum are Tyrese Maxey and Klay Thompson.
Fortunately for the Celtics, Tatum’s inability to close consistently hasn’t led to inefficient offense late in close games. Boston’s 122.0 offensive rating in the clutch ranks fifth-best in basketball, bucking the burgeoning narrative basketball’s best team—by record and most every statistical measure, at least—can’t score when it needs buckets most.
Does the Celtics’ offense bog down in the clutch occasionally? Absolutely, but they’re hardly the only team to which that dynamic applies. Managing the clock, limiting the chance for a turnover and ensuring you get a shot up at all has always meant one-on-one basketball rules the day in crunch-time.
Boston isn’t much different from any other team in that regard. The problem is that Tatum—averaging 1.06 points per isolation possession this season, in the 79th percentile league-wide—just hasn’t been himself as a mano a mano scorer late in fourth quarters and overtimes. As the playoffs dawn, the Celtics’ hopes of raising their first championship banner since 2008 could rest on Tatum’s ability to break that troubling, perhaps random, trend.
