The Mr. Hyde versoion of Tatum showed up last night, especially late.
Overall line: 30 points on 9-17 shooting (1 of 3 from three) along with 11-11 from the line, 7 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 block, 4 turnovers
At a glance it is a respectable line.
But here is his 4th quarter: in 8 minutes, he scored 6 points by going 6-6 at the line - but he was anable to even get a shot off from the field. Beyond that, he had one rebound. Just one. Finally, 3 turnovers.
And the performance was worse than the numbers would indicate. At one point, semi-late in the quarter, with the Celtics trailing by 5 but getting stops on D, they went through 2-3 failed offensive possessions where Tatum did not touch the ball. Following that, they did started getting it to Tatum - and he turned the ball over 3 straight times.
As good as he was during ther last five quarters of the Philly series, he was a not-ready-for-prime time abject disaster tonight. I don't think he wanted the ball and when he finally got it he turned it over repeatedly. Beyond that, he had games in Philly where the shooting wants there throughout but he contributed in other ways - rebounding, setting up teammates, blocked shots, etc. Last night he did basically none of that.
There is a Jekyll-and-Hyde aspect to Tatum that I don't get.
I mean, if he shows up and plays decently - not take the game over as in Philly game 6 - in the 4th quarter, the Celtics might have won this game. Instead he was alternately a nonpresence and a negative one.
I still maintain it's an age/maturity thing. This is a bit crude, because I dont think the bbref gamescore metric is the greatest, but not sure what else to use for this exercise. For reference, they cite 40 as an outstanding performance, and 10 as an average performance. I used 20 as a divider line, because Tatum's score last night was 19.6...which I think speaks to your point, his overall stat line was fine but not what you need from your #1 in the playoffs. Anyway, here is what I found using 3 current superstars in the three seasons of playoff games, around Tatum's age, which culminates with a title (the below doesn't look at
@bosockboy point about the floor, but now I need to get actual work done so I won't have time to get into that):
Lebron
2010 Playoffs, Age 25, 5/11 games (45%) below 20 gamescore
2011 Playoffs, Age 26, 9/21 games (43%) below 20 gamescore
2012 Playoffs, Age 27, 5/23 games (22%) below 20 gamescore - won the title
Curry
2013 Playoffs, Age 25, 8/12 games (66%) below 20 gamescore
2014 Playoffs, Age 26, 4/7 games (57%) below 20 gamescore
2015 Playoffs, Age 27, 8/21 games (38%) below 20 gamescore - won the title
Giannis
2019 Playoffs, Age 24, 7/15 games (47%) below 20 gamescore
2020 Playoffs, Age 25, 4/9 games (44%) below 20 gamescore
2021 Playoffs, Age 26, 7/21 games (33%) below 20 gamescore - won the title
Tatum
2021 Playoffs, Age 23, 2/5 games (40%) below 20 gamescore (if you combine with his 2020 playoff run when he was 8/17 below 20, 10/22 total is 45%)
2022 Playoffs, Age 24, 13/24 games (54%) below 20 gamescore
2023 Playoffs, Age 25, 5/14 (36%) below 20 gamescore
edit: forgot to add Butler as well, since that will be who Tatum is compared to next couple weeks
2015 Playoffs, Age 25, 8/12 games (66%) below 20 gamescore
2016 - no playoff data
2017 Playoffs, Age 27, 3/6 games (50%) below 20 gamescore
2018 Playoffs, Age 28, 4/5 games (80%) below 20 gamescsore
2019 Playoffs, Age 29, 7/12 games (58%) below 20 gamescore
2020 Playoffs, Age 30, 11/21 games (52%) below 20 gamescore (ill stop here since this was closest he's come to a title)