Somehow that narrative haven't hurt Jokic, who has won 2 straight mvps and is the betting favorite to win a 3rd and has 1 playoff series win the last 2 seasons. If Tatum doesn't win it'll be because Jokic or Luka, or maybe Giannis was better, not because of how he played in a very small subset of games.When they played poorly- for myriad understandable reasons- against that team in the previous finals, yes.
Tatum had really rough sledding for the MVP anyway: he'd have to have a pretty overwhelming case this year, and he had to get past the Warriors narrative. That shouldn't matter, but it does.