Three reasons why the Boston Celtics started to win again
No 3. Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown
All season, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown have been playing elite basketball, leading the team on both ends of the court. Still, they continue to unravel whatever limits the fans and media put on their potential every so often. In the last few weeks, they have both played some of the best basketball. The way Tatum and Brown have dominated, even against some of the best teams in the NBA, is what allowed the Celtics to finally began to gain momentum.
Tatum won Player of the Week for the week of April 12, to no one’s surprise, and the following week did his best to win the award back-to-back. The recent surge is not necessarily an evolution or emergence in his game, but it has been astonishing even by his standards. He broke his personal scoring record with 53 points in an overtime victory against the Minnesota Timberwolves, added 44 a week later against the Golden State Warriors and — in his worst scoring performance during the run — Tatum had his first career triple-double versus the Phoenix Suns.
Tatum’s performances seemingly broke the plateau he was stuck at after his incredible outbreak last season. Tatum proved that, if needed, he can single-handly make the Celtics competitive against nearly every team in the playoffs. During the 8-2 streak, Tatum averaged 26.6 points, 9.0 rebounds and 4.4 assists per game on extreme efficiency.
Tatum’s partner in crime has not fallen behind the young superstar, playing equally impressive basketball this month (and all season). Brown recently was diagnosed with a shoulder injury, but he still managed to play nine out of the last eleven games. In those nine games, he scored 20 points seven times (including 40 once), had double-digit rebounds twice, and shot 46.8 percent from 3-point range on 6.9 attempts a game. Whenever the Celtics needed a bucket, Brown has been there, as reliable as ever.
All of last season, Brown seemed to be the same player. He consistently was a 15-20 point per game scorer who could play some very good on-ball defense as well. But this year, he developed another part of his game that has made the duo of Tatum and Brown nearly unstoppable when together: playmaking. Brown has created passes and buckets with the ball in his hand, producing better opportunities for himself and everyone else who shares the floor. Especially during the last few weeks, with a fully (for the most part) healthy lineup, he showed how deadly a weapon his new skill could be.
Together, the two Celtics stars have shined and showed that they are ready to compete with the teams with better records and more hype around them. If they can play as they have during the last couple of weeks, there are very few teams that even have a chance at stopping the Celtics. And at the very least, the two of them exhibited why they are exceptional investments for the future.