Boston Celtics: Jayson Tatum turns up the heat with Jaylen Brown sidelined

In the middle of a west coast trip, the Boston Celtics went into a Friday night matchup with the LA Clippers without the red-hot Jaylen Brown. Brown is day-to-day with knee soreness and will be back on the floor soon. Apart from this minor setback to Brown, the Celtics are now with their full strength roster. With Brown out against LA, a lot of the load fell onto Jayson Tatum‘s shoulders, which wasn’t a problem at all for Boston’s other young star.

After starting their trip out west with a promising win over the Warriors, Boston dropped one against the Kings on Wednesday night. Looking at the calendar, this Clippers matchup looked like it would be the real test on this road trip. LA was also without a key man in Paul George, so it kind of evened itself out with two stars being sidelined. It was still a tough test for both teams and the spectacle that it was set up to be. The Clippers still had their superstar in Kawhi Leonard, but, unfortunately for them, the Celtics had Tatum.

Jayson Tatum steps up for the Boston Celtics with Jaylen Brown out

Boston had a pretty slow start and quickly found themselves in a hole, down 12 points after one. Tatum came out of the blocks firing, as he knew he was going to be the one shooting the basketball with Brown – who’s been playing on an All-Star level all year – wasn’t there to work his magic. Jayson went 4-of-7 from the field, 2-of-3 from 3-point range, during the opening quarter, scoring 10 of Boston’s 21 points.

Tatum showed his dynamic scoring approach as he cooked defenders, creating space for his mid-range jumper, which is about as deadly an offensive weapon as there is in today’s NBA. He positioned himself well for both spot-up attempts beyond the arc and worked well in high pick-and-roll situations off of guys like Tristan Thompson.

In the second quarter, Tatum added five points and the Celtics steadied the ship a little as they went into the locker room down 62-51. LA shot 60.5/53.5/80.0 in the first half and didn’t seem stoppable from a Celtics standpoint. However, whatever head coach Brad Stevens said to his players at half time certainly worked. The third quarter was a recurring talking point for the Celtics last season, as the team seemed to regress to start the second half of games. But, this has been much different this year, none more than during Friday night.

Boston’s defense turned it up massively in the second half, as they held the clippers to just 20 in the third. To go with this, the Boston Celtics managed to string together 38 points in the same quarter, shooting 8-of-11 from 3-point range. Tatum added 12 more points, going 5-of-11 from the field, as he played the entire quarter, helping the Celtics completely change the narrative as they lead by seven entering the final quarter.

Tatum is unguardable at times. His all-around game and especially his footwork make most defenders no match for him. Apart from Kawhi, the LA Clippers tried numerous players on Tatum. Luke Kennard and Nicolas Batum spent time guarding the star. Batum held Tatum to 2-of-8 shooting in just over five minutes on him. Defenders do a good job, but Tatum has that talent to just make you look silly, as he did late in the third quarter, using elite-level footwork to turn Batum inside out on the way to the basket.

The first and third quarters are where we saw Tatum at his best as a scorer, but he did just about everything in this one. Tatum and the Boston Celtics maintained their defensive effort in the fourth quarter to take care of things. For the Clippers, Kawhi was always going to be the focal point and Tatum put the clamps on the superstar many a time. It was mentioned during the broadcast that Tatum hopes to join teammate Marcus Smart on the NBA’s All-Defensive team at the end of the season.

With the intensity he’s bringing every night on both ends you’d certainly expect this to be a reality. Tatum spent 5:20 of his 40 minutes on Friday guarding Leonard. Kawhi went 0-of-2 shooting during that span, giving up a turnover. This turnover came in a clutch moment, with just over two minutes left in the game, as Leonard tried to put the moves on Tatum from the right elbow. With some elite-level defense, this resulted in Tatum poking the ball loose to Walker who gave it back to Tatum in transition, which evolved into Tatum getting himself to the charity strike.

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Tatum made both of these free throws, going 5-of-6 from the line on the night. The 22-year-old hasn’t been getting to the line as much as he’d probably like to, attempting just 3.9 per game. But, when he has been, he’s been taking advantage (84.1 percent). Considering the ferociousness that he’s been bringing, this will change with time. All we need to know right now is that he’s making these winning plays and taking advantage, whether it’s the looks he’s getting or the mismatches in players guarding him, where so many teams don’t have an answer for him.

With Tatum and Brown, the Boston Celtics have their stars going forward. The rest of the team played their parts on both ends throughout Friday’s game as they supported Tatum. This team is a pretty great fit for all parties right now and has plenty of potential going forward.