BOSTON — Jayson Tatum’s first drive to the basket in the Finals drew Daniel Gafford, Derrick Jones Jr., and Luka Dončić. He passed and got Al Horford an open look from three. All five Mavericks watched him on the following possession with their backs to their assignments, two meeting him at the rim before he kicked to Derrick White for a corner three.
Tatum mostly played off-ball early in Game 1 of the NBA Finals, Jrue Holiday carried the ball up the floor after the Mavs sold out on Tatum for two possessions. They even did so when he didn’t initiate offense, Holiday stepping to the free throw line, turning and seeing Dereck Lively II and Kyrie Irving jump to Tatum in trailing position at the sight of Holiday looking his way. Holiday pivoted to White instead, wide open for a second three with two Mavs on Tatum and Boston was off to a 23-5 first quarter run that effectively ended Dallas’ chances in a Game 1 rout.
“He was unbelievable,” Horford said in the locker room. “When you look at our team, the things that we’re able to do out there, they all initiate with him. He gets so much attention, they’re trying to double him, they’re trying to give him different looks and he has to continue to make the right reads. Tonight, he continued to make the right reads every time, taking what the defense gave him and then on the defensive end, he did well, too. He rebounded very well for us. The stuff that he did doesn’t measure in stats or numbers or anything like that, but his impact on the game was felt tremendously, in my opinion.”
Tatum finished with 16 points, 11 rebounds and five assists on 6-for-16 shooting, falling to 43.8% from the field and actually improving slightly to 29.9% from three with a 3-for-7 night behind the line. He saw two defenders often along the perimeter and more often drove into two or three with a rotating center meeting him at the basket.
It marked a continuation of an almost Jordan Rules defensive approach the Heat and Cavaliers employed against him earlier in the playoffs, but some of the struggles also fell on Tatum being unable to exploit his mismatches quickly enough. He committed six turnovers, uncharacteristic during this run. Joe Mazzulla and teammates noted Tatum did his job, though, and his pass-first approach led to him impacting the game despite not taking a shot attempt until almost nine minutes into the game with Boston already leading 24-18.
“I think Jayson is just being Jayson,” Holiday said in the locker room after. “I don’t think there’s any pressure he can’t handle, on or off the court, but I think on the court, him being able to play make, almost having a triple-double and being the best player on the court is what he does … I know sometimes people see him as a scorer, but he’s a natural playmaker, doing a lot of everything.”
Tatum’s game has become increasingly difficult to evaluate as the playoffs have progressed because his job has changed drastically night-to-night and sometimes play-to-play. Dallas flashed a zone that allowed him to step into a three around a screen, but schematically, its design was to limit Tatum’s scoring.
Boston benefited immediately, swinging multiple passes away from the pressure and shooting 11-for-27 (40.7%) from three in the first half while producing 42 points on threes through assists to Dallas’ nine. Even considering potential assists, Tatum out-dueled Dončić as a passer, 14-7. Dončić finished with just one assist.
He also played a role in Boston nearly squandering the 29-point lead he helped build, trying to attack Dončić out of the corner, but doing so too deliberately before getting stripped. A sloppy pick-and-pop with Horford saw him toss a pass too long past him and create a rushed miss. Trying to isolate Lively, he floated back toward mid-court and let the shot clock tick below 10, allowing Dallas to load up on him and force him to lose the ball out-of-bounds. Out of a timeout, a quicker decision to drive downhill past Derrick Jones Jr. got him two points.
Tatum has shot 26.9% from the field (11.4% 3PT, 2.3 att.) this postseason when tightly covered on 4.5 attempts per game. He’s 36.5% FG (38.6% 3PT, 3.8 att.) on 6.4 attempts when open. He’s rarely wide open for 1.2 attempts (44.1%) and 1.0 three-point look (40%) each night. In Game 1, he shot 1-for-1 when wide open, 2-for-4 when open and 1-for-5 when tightly covered, according to NBA tracking data.
“They’ve seen every coverage,” Jason Kidd said pre-game. “We’ve gotta be able to change it up. We can’t give them a steady diet of one thing. They’ll pick you apart. When you get multiple bodies on the ball, that’s when the three comes into play. Hopefully we can stay out of that situation.”
Tatum emerged from his struggles in Round 3 against a weak Pacers defense that sold out to take away the three, in general, rather than Tatum’s lanes to the basket. That resulted in a series where he averaged 30.3 points per game on 46.3% despite his slump from deep continuing (30.6%). He reached the free throw line 7.0 times per game and generated 9.0 open shots each night while hitting 42.9% of his wide open threes (1.8 att.).
It’s not easy to manufacture open looks for your best player at this stage of the playoffs. Mazzulla and the Celtics have put Tatum in the mindset of absorbing defensive crowds and using it to free up other members of the team. They discuss whether he wants to initiate or screen, putting some agency in Tatum’s hands and Boston’s offensive system, in general, calls on players to make the reads. He’s improved drastically with that, averaging 5.9 APG and 2.7 turnovers per night in the playoffs.
His personal offensive consistency hasn’t affected the other parts of his game though but as he looks for opportunities to score against what looks like another overwhelming Dallas effort to stop him, getting into sets quicker, with 16-17 seconds on the shot clock as Mazzulla has said, will help him have time to beat his defenders one-on-one, anticipating a potential adjustment away from double teams.
To this point, in spite of a significant playoff-long shooting slump, Boston has won eight games in a row and is three wins from a championship — and Tatum’s been a major part of it.
“It’s just poise,” Mazzulla said. “They have a great defensive system, great defensive team, throw a bunch of stuff at you. Different spacings. Different coverages and the poise to figure it out and make the right play is going to be the most important thing. I thought he had that throughout the game.”
