One game in, now that it’s begun, let’s bring this narrative to where it should be.
Jayson Tatum. The pride. The joy-in-waiting. The enigma. In his second NBA Finals, to go along with six trips in the last eight years to the Eastern Conference Finals. No rings. More urgent: No imprint in his postseason career to match what he has continuously done in regular seasons. A man with a rep who will be using these next three to six games to try to erase a narrative about himself. It might be impossible unless he becomes someone he’s not.
Or better said: Unless he becomes someone different than who he is.
Game 1 against the Mavericks: 16 points on 6-for-16 shooting with 11 rebounds and five assists . . . and six turnovers.
This is a player who led the Celtics, a 64-win team, during the regular season in minutes, scoring and rebounding and was second on the team in assists and steals. A first-team All-NBA member for the third straight season, one who came into these Finals with the second-most playoff points in NBA history before turning 27 with 2,600.
Yet, his playoff past comes into the Finals haunting him in a way that almost seems unfair — but isn’t. The five-point, 2-for-10 field-goal Game 2 he had against the Bucks in the 2019 Eastern Conference semifinals; the 14-point, 5-for-13 field-goal game he had in last year’s Game 7 against the Heat while playing on an injured ankle; the nine points on 3-for-12 field goals he had in 2021 vs. the Nets; the 10-point, 3-for-14 field-goal Game 3 against the Heat in 2022; Game 5 of last year’s Eastern Conference semis, where he went 11-for-27 in field goals and 3-for-11 in three-pointers. Despite 36 points, there was that minus-26 plus/minus, shooting under 37% for the series in his first Finals two years ago against the Warriors, never in one game shooting 50%. Game 1, Thursday.
There’s more, but why go there? Let the James Hardens and Paul Georges and Joel Embiids and Devin Bookers carry that game-disappearance, “moments of underachieving in major moments” narrative with them. Tatum is the one right now who can rise above it and unlatch it from his legacy. But can he, and will he?
Said he was “nervous like a child” being back in the Finals, that it was “surreal.” And unfortunately, it showed. Even though Boston won Game 1, for Tatum, winning is not going to be enough. Not to shake what he can’t seem to escape. He can’t play “well,” can’t play “average,” can’t just play “winning basketball.” Unfortunately, Tatum does not have that luxury. His past won’t allow it. His place in the history of the game won’t allow it.
The struggle is real and unforgiving. And in this new world of G.O.A.T. guardianship, it’s already and only going to continue to get worse. Tatum’s stigma is directly about him, not about the success of the team. Of course, winning matters and helps, and rings may not be everything, but they sure AH beat whatever criteria enters the conversation second. But in this case more is at stake. The pressure is more on Tatum to play “greater than” than it is about the Celtics bringing home title No. 18.
He’s a No. 1 guy, labeled the Celtics’ best player, one of the five best in the league, but with a recurring playoff and Finals flaw that no one in the media, public or inside the Celtics organization in the game of basketball is willing to let go. One where right now Jaylen Brown cannot continue to outplay him and cannot be perceived as the best of the two. Where Kristaps Porzingis cannot outplay him and cannot be the second-best player in a Boston uniform during these Finals. It took Steph Curry four rings and a Finals MVP to finally erase his stigma. And JT ain’t SC.
The excuses are zero, the rationale is zero, the wiggle room to explain “what had happened was . . .” is zero. Zero like the number on his chest and back.
For a player who should, 23 years from now, be on the NBA100 team, this isn’t the conversation that should be attached to him as he, for the second time, tries to win his first ring. It’s messed up, it’s wrong, it’s cold, it’s petty. But it is.
Sunday begins Part 2 of the subplot. One where his role in his team winning is actually greater than his team actually winning for the rest of the way. If Jayson Tatum walks away from these Finals, win or lose, as the best player on the court among all the other players (including a possible three other Hall of Famers, maybe four), then the narrative on him will be lifted and he can play free for the rest of his career. Knowing that in the 2024 Finals he proved — individually, to us — that when it counted he finally was him. And moving forward, all he’ll have to do is concentrate on winning, no longer what not winning means in the greater context of his life.
Asked what he feels he needs to do going into the Finals, Tatum said, “I think right now, staying present in the moment. I’m not thinking about what it would mean for my legacy or anything like that . . .”
Ugh, brah. The problem is you may not be, but everyone else is.
