Both, and the Grizzlies were super physical with him/hard trapping him most of the game.
Yeah, they get into their offense slowly a lot, but so do most teams.
The Celtics were without three of their top backcourt players. They played big almost all game, utilizing JT as a ball handler. They managed to get a comfortable win without Tatum making a basket in the second half. That kind of win should imbue even more confidence in the reserves.
Good point, thank you. As a basketball fan I often think about what might be best right now without thinking hard enough about the bigger picture. (At least I hope I only do this as a basketball fan...)
The reserves are giving CJM ample evidence that he can taper Tatum's regular season minutes after the All-Star break
I heard Brad say that but Tatum may resist. JT likes to play and frankly, he barely breaks a sweat playing a game. I imagine his summer Hanlan workouts are probably more intense than playing 38 NBA minutes over the course of 2 hours.
It is a very nice accomplishment, but Luka will likely break it next year. He's basically got a full year to pass Tatum (he's 362 days younger than Tatum), needs 136 more to get to 1,000, and is averaging about 185 3s per year.
If someone shares a locker room with Kyrie Flat-Earth Irving there's nothing that can be expected of/about this person with any kind of certainty!
Considering the degree of difficulty of some of Tatum’s drives, this is impressive. Hopefully he will try to score more off p/r action where his teammates set him up for easy looks, and less off difficult Tatum vs the World offense.
The Smart/White/Brown pocket passes are impressive.
It just really bothers me that a charity is at the whim of who wins the quarter, and how "little" the donation is compared to how much the event brings in. Just tie it to something like for every time your team scores 25 points, we add 100K. Maybe it's just my marketing background, but I think the NBA just comes off poorly with the whole thing
I dunno, 400k isn’t nothing and it’s 400k more than what any other league is donating based on in-game All-Star Game results as far as I know. I’ve read all week about this criticism which I don’t really understand as they aren’t obligated to donate anything.
I know I know, I get it, you are right, I should be happy for those charities, and I am. However, it just grosses me out how it's also quite possible the NBA spent more money hyping up the fact they are donating than the actual donation. It's a far better ratio in this situation than most, its just one of those things that bothers me
I understand the criticism. Like, if they donated just one dollar say it would clearly be bizarre at best and insulting at worst. There is a dollar number where it stops being bizarre/insulting, but I think for an organization that large its a big number. Not sure if 400K is it but I understand where Mort Report is coming from and I think I agree.
You’ve seen Tatum’s progression over the past 6 seasons, you’re watching him produce career highs this season in PPG, RPG, APG and TS%……and your concerned that a 6 of 10 game stretch is more than a blip? We’ve seen similar stretches every year out of him…..were those not blips either? Ask yourself, do you think he’s suddenly regressed as a player?
The only potential concern I have would be that he might be injured, and they aren't resting him because it's not something that can be fixed with rest. I don't like that he's still wrapping up his wrist (and occasionally flexing it and wincing during games).
Fair, but given the amount of defense played that day I probably could have gone for double digits.
Be specific. What are you concerned about? That he's hurt? That he's regressed and is now a worse player than he was a month ago? That he's going to shoot 31% going forward?
This is bosockboy’s thing.. he probably has over 100 posts at this point stating that Tatum isn’t an mvp caliber player or top ten etc because he missed the last shot or some other cherry picked sample.. without doing any work whatsoever to compare him to any other player to check if any of his statements are close to true.
Let's flesh the argument out a bit, then.
It's fair to question whether Tatum's wearing down due to the workload. I don't think the last two games are particularly persuasive in that direction. The other post-All Star game that you left out, against the Pacers, Tatum shot 11 free throws. To the extent he's "abandoned the drive", it may have something to do with Embiid and Mitchell Robinson patrolling the paint. It also might be referee variance, or a dozen other factors.
And before the 11 FT game he had only 2 FTs against the Pistons. 16 in 4 games is also a season low for him. 14 in 3 games is probably a season low. It’s not the be all and end all but it is a data point.
I think that, at the very least, the decreased FT rate is a "something is wrong" argument, even if it's not directly minutes (which it could be).
If anyone wants to listen to Karalis take on Tatum ~ 29-minute mark
