Jayson Tatum takes over again, leads Celtics to blowout win over Heat: 7 takeaways
Tatum is at his absolute best when his threes are falling, and he made three during his third-quarter run.
Jayson Tatum and the Celtics dominated the Heat in the second half on Monday, claiming their sixth win in seven tries with a 103-85 win.
Here are the takeaways.
Jayson Tatum took over in the second half.
Over the last two years, we’ve written repeatedly about the ways Jayson Tatum helps the Celtics even when he isn’t scoring. Tatum has grown into one of the most effective passers in the league – a devastating black hole of gravity, but still more than happy to move the ball and pile up double-digit assists rather than scoring 30 points.
For the last two games, however, Tatum has shown once again why he has all that gravity – if you let him get going, he’s one of the absolute best scorers in the world, and he can single-handedly take a game and put it far out of reach.
On Saturday, of course, Tatum demolished the Knicks – crushing Karl-Anthony Towns and Jalen Brunson in the pick-and-roll when the Knicks had the audacity to let either player get caught on him.
On Monday, Tatum started slow. He missed all five of his field-goal attempts in the first quarter, scoring just two points on a pair of free throws. He then played just four minutes in the second, although he did hit a 3-pointer and a pair of layups when he returned to the lineup.
Then, in the third quarter – with Boston leading by nine – Tatum put the game to bed with a wild stretch of offense. From the 8:04 mark to the end of the quarter, Tatum scored 20 points, helping the Celtics outscore the Heat by 14 after they outscored them by 15 in the third. What little Miami could do to make up ground in the fourth quarter was far too small and far too late.
Tatum is, of course, at his absolute best when his threes are falling, and he made three during his third-quarter run.
But he’s at his most dominant when he mixes in his thunderous drives to the rim. The Heat kept allowing Terry Rozier to get switched onto Tatum, which was a mistake – Tatum ran right around and through the smaller guard. Rookie Pelle Larsson caught him at one point, which wasn’t much better. Duncan Robinson got cooked. Bam Adebayo couldn’t get his timing right as the help defender. The Heat never really brought a second defender, and Tatum made them pay over and over (and over and over).
With Jaylen Brown and Jrue Holiday sidelined, the Celtics had more than enough starpower for a Heat team that was without Tyler Herro (and is finally rid of Jimmy Butler), and after the Celtics put themselves in a good position, Tatum took the end of the second quarter and the entire third to make Monday’s game into a cushy win. He finished with 33 points on 13-for-26 shooting, and that stat line feels like it undersells his performance.
Derrick White put a perfect cap on the third quarter.
The Celtics had already pushed their lead to 20 when Nikola Jović booted a ball out of bounds with 2.9 seconds remaining in the third quarter after the Celtics tried to execute a 2-for-1. It seemed like the only shot they were going to be able to get up was going to be a prayer.
Derrick White, it seems, has a connection with a greater entity.
The 3-pointer right in front of the Heat’s bench felt like the final crack following Tatum’s long string of backbreaking jumpers.
White was otherwise relatively quiet – 13 points on 3-for-10 shooting, 2-for-8 from three, although he did dish out seven assists.
When Al Horford scores, the Celtics move the ball.
Al Horford hit his first shot of the game late in the first half when the ball pinged from Kristaps Porzingis in the post to a cutting White to Horford in the corner, where he buried a 3-pointer.
Horford scored his third shot when Jayson Tatum drove to the hoop and dumped a pass to Porzingis, who zipped it back out to the veteran center above the 3-point line.
He hit his fourth when the Celtics worked the ball right to left, and Sam Hauser dished behind his back to Horford for a triple.
He scored his fifth from the post when Payton Pritchard fired the ball across the floor to Luke Kornet as Horford established inside position, and Kornet completed the triangle by hitting an entry pass over the defender to Horford for a layup.
And finally, Horford hit his last field goal of the game midway through the fourth when Jayson Tatum and Derrick White ran a pick-and-roll, and Tatum fired a pass from the free-throw line out to an open Horford for a three.
Horford finished with 16 points, including 4-for-8 shooting from behind the arc. He doesn’t create much offense at this stage in his career (which, fair enough, obviously), but he can be an effective barometer for how much offense the Celtics as a whole are creating.
Sam Hauser gave the Celtics the lead.
After the Heat held the Celtics to 18 points in the first quarter, the Celtics trimmed the deficit and then erased it completely with an 18-0 run that spanned six minutes over two quarters, propelling themselves into the lead on the strength of Sam Hauser’s shooting.
Hauser hit his second triple of the game with 10:52 remaining before halftime. A little more than a minute later, he hit another, which pushed the Celtics’ advantage to four. Another minute later, he hit a fourth. By the time Hauser drilled his fifth 3-pointer of the half at the 6:41 mark, the Celtics’ lead had ballooned to double digits.
Hauser has his faults on the defensive end, and he can be streaky offensively, but having him on the floor gives the offense the potential to explode, especially against defenses that are overtaxed by trying to contain the other players on the floor. Hauser isn’t a potential star, but he’s a potential gamebreaker who can put together stretches that end up turning and/or deciding games.
Hauser didn’t score again after the second quarter, but Tatum made sure he didn’t have to. He finished with 15 points on 5-for-8 shooting from three.
Joe Mazzulla wants you to see the whole picture.
Before halftime, the Celtics had built their lead to 16 before a 7-0 run by the Heat cut it back down to nine.
It was a messy stretch by the Celtics – Tatum attempted a 2-for-1 3-pointer, but he took it too early – firing up a step-back jumper with 37.1 seconds remaining (he missed short). The Heat rushed the ball back up the floor, and new acquisition Davion Mitchell actually ended up executing the 2-for-1. On the other end, Tatum missed a layup, and Bam Adebayo buried a prayer of his own.
After the game, a reporter asked Mazzulla about a stretch.
“Listen, those are the things that when we’re sitting here and we lose a close game and everyone focuses on the fourth quarter and the last minute and a half, and the last shot, and all that crap, but you lose the second quarter 7-0 because you don’t execute the 2-for-1, you give up three plays, that stuff can cost you more than what happens in the fourth quarter, but when you win, no one wants to talk about it,” Mazzulla said.
“So we just have to have a heightened awareness of the details and closing out quarters. That to me is the biggest difference between winning and losing, and we got away with it today. We’re obviously not going to play perfect basketball, but I thought the difference between that 7-0 run and the second half was we just didn’t let up.”
The Heat are not a scary team.
In the past, the Heat had a reputation for being a frightening team that you didn’t want to face in the postseason, even if their record was mediocre. The Celtics, of course, experienced this firsthand, falling behind 3-0 in the Eastern Conference finals in 2023 and ultimately falling short of a return to the Finals.
But two years is a long time ago, and this year’s iteration simply doesn’t have teeth. Certainly, missing Tyler Herro is a tough hit for this Heat team, but he isn’t a stellar defender, and – as we pointed out against the Knicks – teams who have a crucial offensive player that struggles to defend are often target practice for the Celtics. After Jimmy Butler was granted the trade he poked and prodded the organization to provide, the Heat now lack any other star power at the guard and wing positions. Bam Adebayo is a great defender and a fine offensive player, but the Celtics will happily give up the kind of offense he provides in exchange for their own preferred brand of free-wheeling 3-point gunning.
The Heat don’t really look like they have the offense to be a meaningful challenger. If the season ended now, they would be the favorites to take on the Celtics in the first round of the playoffs following the play-in tournament, which would be a pretty friendly bracket for the Celtics.
The Celtics could enter the All-Star break on a really encouraging run.
If you were concerned about the Celtics during their brief swoon (and, as always, a reminder that a “swoon” by this team’s standards is “.500 basketball for a month or so”), the last couple of weeks have been a nice bounce back to reality.
The reality? The Celtics are really good – while they aren’t the No. 1 seed in the conference, they took the season series from the Cavaliers and proved that they are still the team to beat in the Eastern Conference, and perhaps in the NBA. With just one stumble against the Mavericks, the Celtics have won six of their last seven with victories over the two teams sandwiching them in the standings.
They have just one contest remaining before the break, and it will be a fun one – Wednesday’s showdown against Victor Wembanyama and the new-look Spurs with De’Aaron Fox. The game tips off at 7 p.m.
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