Relax. It was a joke. The poster said, "they won and that's all you remember." I just happened to remember Bird didn't get finals MVP because the voters were fucking dumb and used his low PPG as a reason to not give it to him. He was absolutely the best player in the series.
Agreed - I understand the media narrative on Tatum, but the guys who actually get paid to win the games have been completely clear on Tatum being the critical guy to game-plan around all along. He's the straw that stirs the drink, and they know it...as do his teammates, clearly.
Same story as the 2015 Finals: Cleveland trapped Steph a ton, so Iguodala stole the MVP.
He made 11 shots, and 6 were off Tatum assists. A few of the others were in transition.
I’m gonna guess part of the reason is we didn’t see Duncan consistently shoot under 40% in the Finals.
Very different position and offensive role.
Ahh, but Cedric Maxwell has made a career out of that Finals MVP (no judgement here; I loved Cornbread as a player) so there's that.
It's kind of been the same. Except instead of passing the ball to Marcus Smart and a tired Al Horford, he can throw the ball to Jrue Freaking Holiday and KP.
I thought in 2022 he made a lot more bad decisions as to how to react in traffic and to late help. Having better teammates helps a lot, but Tatum is making way better decisions and is way more under control. It's cumulative.
Well to be fair if teams sold out on Duncan the way the Mavs have with Tatum, Ginobilli and Parker would have 70% eFG and Duncan would have averaged about 7 assists more a game.
Fully agree. But that takes nuance. National media and fans don’t do nuance.
He plays off the ball where Marcus wanted the ball and to be in the middle of it all. Jrue is the type of player, if you’re defending him, that you have to keep checking to see where he is.. always on your back shoulder, cutting when you’re not looking, moving without the ball to be open of the guy with the ball gets in trouble.. Best kind of teammate to have.
I think JB and JT are a lot stronger on the ball now as well. They’re not as loose with if and they’re much more of a physical presence with their defenders.. JB said it the other night.. we’re not the same as we were two years ago..
Tatum's shooting was very uneven throughout most of the 2021-22 season, and overall it was one season where he shot the 3 pointer much better in the playoffs (39%) than during the regular season (35%).
He was also around 32% in the last playoff run as well so that’s the equivalent of 30% or so for a half season, which we’d absolutely notice during the regular season. No idea why but the sample size is getting pretty large at this point. Obviously, I don’t really care as long as they finish the job and I’m sure he feels the same way. But a good shooting night would make taking a game in Dallas that much easier.
From a strategy standpoint I have to imagine he has to take some of the contested layups where the D collapses on him, otherwise he really does turn into Ben Simmons and teams would stop collapsing on him as hard and not leave other guys as open. I think that explains SOME of his shooting woes, although clearly a good chunk of those woes rests squarely on his own shoulders. And as frustrating as his shooting is, and while I know basic counting stats are...well, basic...there's something to be said for a guy leading his team in points/rebounds/assists (while maintaining a good ast/to ratio) during the course of a 14-2 playoff run.
Yeah, I think there's a game theoretic aspect to his iso 3s and tough layup attempts, where those force teams to hug up on him and give rim help, respectively.
There were a handful of possessions last night where his decision making annoyed the crap out of me (a turnaround 20 footer with like 17 sec left on shot clock, a couple of wide open 3s passed up), but for most part I think his decision making has been pretty sublime. Does he need to shoot better for the team to win? Clearly not. Does he need to shoot better to change the narrative about his status? Probably. I just dgaf.
Based on their offensive philosophy, Joe probably doesn't love his tough, contested layup attempts. Those lead to high-value transition (as we saw when DJJ blocked him and that led to the PJ runout that nearly was a dunk).
When this was posted, I figured it was a foregone conclusion that Tatum would be the points leader on this list by the time the finals were over, now I'm not so sure.
Yeah at this point if it's a sweep, he it's hard to see him passing Kobe, at least based on how the first two games went. He came into the series needing to average somewhere between 23.8 (in 4 games) and 13.6 (in 7 games). Now it's between 30.5 (in 2 games) and 12.2 (in 5 games).
So well said. There was one time last night where JT drove and seemed to get caught underneath with nowhere to go. Suddenly Jrue came cutting down the lane into the one open slot afforded to JT who dished it thru for an easy bucket. JT gets the assist but that was likely a turnover without Jrue’s perfect cut.
Yeah, it was terrible. And, Bob's not entirely right, we complained a little. Not really "complained," because Larry already was a god in our eyes. More like, "wtf is going on here?"
It has gotten so bad Bob Ryan is defending Tatum? Good god.
I think we'll see a lot more of this if Boston ends up winning (and Tatum stays on the same shooting efficiency path he's been on).....but man, what I wouldn't give for him to have a breakout game scoring. It doesn't even have to be reminiscent of his biggest games (last year against Philly, 2022 against Milwaukee, 2021 against Brooklyn), I'd happily take a repeat of game 3 vs Indy, just 18 days ago, when he went 36/10/8 with 0 turnovers on .647 TS. In addition to shutting up a lot of the criticism, it's likely to result in a 3-0 lead. If he has another truly inefficient game scoring, this time on the road and with KP limited, it's gonna be a much harder path to victory than in games 1 and 2.
I keep thinking Tatum will break out with a big points night.
That was courtesy of Grande, think Hanlen just RT’d.
i called this as a potential reason they wouldn’t be as dominant in the playoffs as they were in the regular season.
yes it was a Grande re-tweet
One mitigating aspect of these on/off is that the Celtics had some big wins in the early rounds:
That was amazing. I was sure that he had 100% lost the handle. It looked like an optical illiusion.Unreal.
