BOSTON – Whether it was cleverness or sheer candor from the Dallas head coach, Jason Kidd’s proclamation that Jaylen Brown was Boston’s best player certainly brought attention back to the battle that has been brewing over the course of the team’s seven seasons. Brown and Jayson Tatum together. It’s been a struggle for these Celtics to resist the temptations of outside antagonism, to the point that Jrue Holiday felt the need to clarify his statement on the matter at Saturday’s practice, before Holiday took questions from the media after the 26 your team’s points in the match. Celtics’ 105-98 Game 2 victory over the Mavericks on Sunday night.
“I don’t prefer one or the other. “I prefer both,” Holiday said. “They are both superstars and it shows here on the world’s biggest stage.”
The fact that neither Tatum nor Brown, and for the All-NBA first team in particular, are an offensive engine in themselves, a playmaker like Luka Dončić on this Finals court, has left margins for both Celtics. -Stars that should be analyzed when their best performances are absent from the most important moments.
Several of Tatum’s powerful attacks on Sunday night, for his final attempt on Twitter, resulted in the ball sliding around the rim long enough to spin and fall into the hands of a Mavericks rebounder. His passing back this postseason has been inconsistent both from the 3-point line and from mid-range. When Tatum hit his only 3-pointer of Game 2, on a swing-swing-swing sequence late in the third, he shook his head with more relief than pride. He was just 6 of 22 from the field and 1 of 7 from deep. “Obviously I need to shoot better,” Tatum said. “Gah-lee…”
Tatum, however, functioned more as a facilitator than Dončić tonight, as was also the case in Game 1, when Tatum placed 5 assists in Dončić’s only setup. Tatum racked up 8 assists at halftime on Sunday night before finishing with 18 points, 9 rebounds and 12 digs. “It wasn’t like he had to do anything spectacular,” Tatum said. “It was just about finding the open guy.” Dallas has had him writhing through the crowd every time he explores the paint, often thanks to Dončić’s killer defense clearing a lane for Tatum or Brown to drive. “Every time I do a couple of dribbles, there’s like three people there,” Tatum said. And that’s where he responded by shooting at his open teammates when too many Mavericks had followed him.
“Coming into a game, it’s kind of like a puzzle, and he’s done a great job of learning how to solve the puzzle and do different things,” head coach Joe Mazzulla said. “Tonight, with the way they rotated and the way they defended, the most important thing was making the right play at the rim.”
It was there late in Game 3 against Indiana, where Tatum threw a no-look behind-the-back beauty to Al Horford for a triple dagger after Tatum drew three defenders to the basket. He was there all day Sunday night, as Tatum turned the corner and turned Dallas’ rotations into easy looks for shooters along the perimeter or Holiday lurking along the baseline.
“Sometimes when I’m driving and I might get stuck, I need someone to ride with me or be in space and in my vision,” Holiday said. “So I think, for the most part, I just try to get in front of him, give him a good start and he’s been making great reads.”
Tatum was the first player to text Holiday once Boston traded for its former postseason opponent, after Milwaukee traded the veteran guard to Portland for Damian Lillard. Tatum has also found special synergy with Boston’s other All-Star newcomer, 7-foot-3 center Kristaps Porziņģis, where the pair have perfected a pick-and-pop action that stretches most opponents. until they break.
The reality is that Boston is built to withstand poor shooting displays from any critical cog in its top six. Tatum wasn’t the only Celtic who had trouble shooting him tonight. Boston made just 10 of 39 shots from beyond the arc. Porziņģis missed all three of his attempts from the center. Sam Hauser missed all five. Brown was just 1-for-4.
But this lineup is so complete and so deep that Tatum has so many players to shore up with every eye he has, dancing with Derrick Jones Jr. possession after possession and then evading helper after helper. “I get so much attention that I’m not always going to get the vaccine,” Tatum said. Whereas if Dallas doesn’t get efficient buckets from both Dončić and Kyrie Irving, the Mavericks may truly lack the ability to come out of one of these contests unscathed. Tatum, on the other hand, focuses on prioritizing the ball that circulates around Boston’s perimeter attack.
“I’m really tired of hearing about this guy or this guy or that guy and everyone trying to make it something other than Celtics basketball,” Mazzulla said. “Everyone who stepped on that court made winning plays on both ends of the court. That is the most important”.
Holiday’s cut opened up several scoring opportunities that otherwise would not have materialized. Porziņģis, despite his instability in the second half, encountered another flurry in the first quarter. Payton Prichard entered the third quarter with 3 seconds left and delivered a push that turned all the momentum back in favor of the raucous home crowd. Brown said Boston’s reserve point guard even checked himself into the game to throw that exact sentence off the backboard and through the cotton. Many players won’t throw that Hail Mary to save their precious percentages. “The play of the game that cannot go unnoticed, the humility of our team, is Payton’s shot at the end of the quarter,” Mazzulla added.
“We have a lot of weapons on our team,” Brown said.
The Celtics are now two wins away from finishing the deal this franchise feels it squandered two years ago, after taking a 2-1 lead over Golden State in the 2022 NBA Finals. That was the season in which the then-Celtics coach Ime Udoka first challenged Tatum to evolve as a passer. Much of his and this team’s overall evolution is due to the shortcomings of that series. “It has a lot to do with me being here before and we didn’t win,” Tatum said of his willingness to move the ball.
As this matchup returns to Dallas, don’t expect anything to change in their approach either, even if their scoring never improves or their backward steps never stabilize. He is Boston’s leading rebounder in both games, pulling down 11 rebounds in both. He has switched Dončić play after play, with the Celtics smartly placing Tatum over Daniel Gafford or Dereck Lively II in preparation for Dallas’ endless pick-and-rolls. He is crouched in his posture. He has dragged his feet.
“We always talk about doing whatever it takes,” Tatum said, “for as long as it takes.”
