Just three rookies have ever scored more points than Jayson Tatum in a postseason run. It’s a statistic fraught with small sample sizes, with circumstances, and with various other factors that prevented many all-time greats from ever getting a chance to participate in the race. It’s impressive nonetheless.
Jayson Tatum is a Celtics star, and a rookie, in that order
The 20-year-old keeps defying every expectation that we’ve ever set for players his age.
Winslow Townson-USA TODAY Sports
The Boston Celtics star — yeah, he’s a star now, first year be damned — showed up yet again on Wednesday, leading the team with 24 points in a 96-83 Game 5 victory. Tatum did more than just score: he was efficient (7-of-15 shooting), he recorded four assists, and he was sensational defensively. Even his four steals and two blocks don’t tell the full story of how good he was on that end.
In no surprise, then, that Tatum was plus-19 in his 41 minutes on the court on Wednesday, outpacing the final 13-point margin. All year, Boston played best when Tatum was on the floor. They outscored teams during the regular season by 6.7 points per 100 possessions with him, and were outscored by a team-worst 1.1 points per 100 possessions without him. It might be his first year, but Tatum was superglue for this roster, bringing together any lineup with perfect symmetry.
It’s weird that the Celtics might look back on this season and be weirdly comfortable with Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward’s injuries. Would they have known how good Tatum really was those two stars hadn’t gone down? Tatum would have played plenty, but could he have developed in quite the same manner if he was fourth or fifth on the totem pole? No one can say for sure.
What is clear is that Tatum is damn good, nearly unstoppable offensively in this postseason with long-limbed pull-up jumpers that stretch way over defenders and pounding drives to the rim taking full advantage of his wide frame. Just look at this kid — he’s only 20!
How do you stop that?
It turns out famed trainer Drew Hanlen was right when he pestered the Celtics front office with promises about how special his client really was. As detailed in an excellent feature from The Athletic’s Jared Weiss:
His trainer Drew Hanlen had been telling the Celtics for months that Tatum was special. He wasn’t just a great wing prospect. There was something different about him. Tatum was a sponge unlike anything he had encountered before, absorbing instruction with immediate comprehension and implementation.
Tatum was compared to Harrison Barnes and Danny Granger coming into last year’s draft, with questions about his outside shot, about his defensive effort, and about his ability to create offense. There’s no question that Boston was the ideal landing spot for someone like him, but so much of this is on Tatum, too. As much love as Brad Stevens has received this postseason, he has been careful to redistribute onto his players. Ultimately, they make or break everything that Stevens is able to do.
It’s silly that Tatum has been capable of this much, not even one year since officially arriving in the league. But he has, and the Celtics wouldn’t dream put any sort of barrier on how quickly he can advance. If they did, maybe Tatum would still be toiling away as a third or fourth option, lacking faith in his team or his role. Instead, he’s shining as their top star, sharing the spotlight with Jaylen Brown as a shorthanded Boston roster proves that they can still battle right with any team in the league.
Tatum has the Celtics one win away from the NBA Finals. It’s not just him responsible for Boston’s run, but that the previous sentence didn’t even make you blink is incredible.
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