Jayson Tatum leads short-handed Celtics to easy win over banged-up Sixers: 7 takeaways
The Sixers were little match for even a short-handed Celtics team in Boston Thursday night.
Jayson Tatum and the Celtics were short-handed, but they had more than enough blow out the even more short-handed Sixers on Thursday, claiming a 123-105 victory.
Here are the takeaways.
Jayson Tatum has never scored an easier 35 points
It takes a special player to score 35 points in the NBA as regularly as Tatum, so we would never want to disparage one of his big scoring outbursts, but we would be remiss if we didn’t acknowledge that Tatum’s 35 points had to have come more easily than just about any other game in his career.
Tatum got started early, essentially running straight ahead to the rim in the first quarter for 18 points in the first 12 minutes, staking the Celtics to an early 11-point lead. The early returns suggested that if the Sixers kept the game close enough to keep him on the floor, Tatum could be headed for an overwhelming night.
Instead, Tatum seemed to hit the cruise control, and his cruise control — with some help from some surprising sources, who we will get to — was more than enough to spark the Celtics to a big win. He hit some 3-pointers in the second half and blew some kisses to the Celtics’ crowd en route to an efficient 35 points on 14-for-23 shooting (5-for-11 from three) as well as seven rebounds, two assists and three steals.
Tatum has been flirting with a triple-double on a nearly nightly basis for several weeks, but the Sixers didn’t appear interested in defending him in a way that would encourage assists, so Tatum simply beat them by scoring instead.
Either way you defend Tatum this year, the result is largely the same.
A reporter noted to Joe Mazzulla that Tatum’s 35 points felt like an afterthought.
“I mean, I’m glad you said that, because I think that’s true, and I think that’s important,” Mazzulla said. “I think that’s good. But I told him after the game, you did your job. Your job was to score 35 and sit the fourth quarter in a game like this, and he did it, and he was great. […]
“To sit here and have him do that and to be the last question of the night just kind of shows how good he is.”
Baylor Scheierman had his best NBA game by a wide margin
Tatum wasn’t the only player who blew kisses on Thursday. Celtics rookie Baylor Scheierman blew a couple, except he blew them to the Sixers’ bench in the second half after burying his third 3-pointer of the game right in front of them.
“Every time you shoot by the bench they’re always saying, ‘Hell nah,’ so I’m having to turn around and give them a little kiss,” Scheierman said.
Scheierman put together the best game of his young NBA career by far: 15 points on 5-for-10 shooting to go with three assists and three rebounds. He started by burning a Sixers defender closing out to the 3-point line and scoring a layup — part of the Celtics’ parade to the rim in the first quarter — before knocking down consecutive 3-pointers. Later in the game, Scheierman showed some hustle by taking a charge and later flying after a transition opportunity by the Sixers to prevent an easy layup before sliding well past the stanchion in his haste to prevent the bucket.
Scheierman is an interesting prospect for a few reasons. First, he has good size for the NBA game. Second, his defensive positioning looked a little better than advertised. Finally, and maybe most importantly, he does not by any stretch of the imagination look intimidated by the moment. Scheierman is going to come out throwing 3-pointers at the rim no matter when he enters the game, and if they go in, he’s thrilled to blow a kiss at any trash talkers directly behind him.
“I’m very confident in myself and my abilities to impact the game in a lot of ways, whether that’s taking charges or making plays for others or hitting shots, and obviously got an opportunity tonight and just made the most of it,” Scheierman said. “But overall, I’ve always been pretty confident in my ability to impact the game.”
Scheierman has a long way to go before he’s a regular NBA player, but there’s some early promise.
“He played in college a lot longer than guys that maybe were one-and-done, but his understanding of the game, very high IQ player,” Tatum said. “He knows where to be on the floor, spacing-wise. Obviously he took the charges tonight, he got a steal in the backcourt that third quarter. He just has really good instincts, obviously can shoot the ball. Not the most athletic, but understands how to use his body and his tempo, to be effective throughout the game.”
Derrick White lost another tooth
In his apparent quest to become the perfect Bostonian, Derrick White will soon look like a Boston Bruin.
Midway through the second quarter, White took a nasty hit from Kelly Oubre’s elbow as the Sixers wing went up for a floater. Oubre didn’t really appear to swing his elbow dangerously, but he caught White square in the face, and replays showed something white popping out of White’s mouth. He doubled over grabbing his face, reached down to grab the stray tooth, and headed to the locker room with his jersey over his face.
White later said he was supposed to go in two weeks ago to get his permanent teeth put in after he had a tooth chipped in Game 5 of the Finals.
“Shout out Boston Dental,” White quipped. “I’ll see y’all tomorrow by the way. And so that fell out. It’s not a pretty sight, so thankfully I covered my mouth right away.”
Oubre later hit Torrey Craig in the chin with his shoulder in what also appeared to be a relatively innocuous upward motion (although Luke Kornet didn’t appreciate it), sending the second-newest Celtic to the floor, where he remained for a moment.
The second facial contact prompted Derrick White’s dad — an excellent follow on social media, if you’re inclined — to weigh in.
Congratulations to Miles Norris
Norris, the newest Celtic, entered the game late in the fourth quarter, marking his first ever appearance in an NBA game. The 24-year-old two-way wing grabbed a rebound immediately, but it was waved away due to a foul before he grabbed another one, his first contribution to an NBA box score.
Congratulations to Norris. Your first NBA minutes are always a big deal, and his first NBA minutes happened to be captured by TNT.
Joe Mazzulla let Neemias Queta have it
Mazzulla has talked often about how coachable Neemias Queta is, and how willing he is to take criticism.
On Thursday, Mazzulla could be seen tearing into Queta going into a timeout in the first half. In the second, Queta turned his game around – finishing with eight points, nine rebounds, four assists and two blocks in his 24-minute stint.
“When you’re hard on a guy like that, I told him that yesterday, I truly think he has a chance to be a good player in this league, and he’s won games for us,” Mazzulla said. “It’s hard sometimes when he doesn’t get to play all the time, but that can’t impact his value. So I really believe in him, and he’s got a chance to be good, so just got to stay on him.”
What’s next for the Sixers?
The Sixers are in a whole heap of trouble and need to follow the same blueprint that got them Joel Embiid: They need to lose a lot as fast as possible.
As things stand, the Sixers are tied for the sixth-worst record in the NBA at 21-41. If they fall any lower than sixth in the NBA lottery, they will lose their draft pick to the Oklahoma City Thunder, which would be a disastrously disappointing end to one of the most disastrously disappointing seasons any team has had this year if you forget about the professional basketball team from Dallas.
The Sixers are doing their best (worst) — they’ve lost three in a row and are 1-9 in their last 10 contests. The Raptors are just a game behind (ahead of?) them, so they could in theory get to the fifth-best lottery odds relatively easily. The Pelicans are three games lower in the standings, which could be a tall order to make up, although the Pelicans are .500 in their last 10 and are doing themselves no favors at the moment.
The last time the Celtics faced the Sixers, Embiid was still playing, although it would be a massive stretch to call him healthy. At the time, the Sixers were still talking about the possibility of making the play-in. That possibility has long since sailed, and the uncomfortable questions that were starting to ripple around the team at the time are threatening to turn into a full-blown whirlpool.
The biggest game of the year looms
Sure, the games against the Cavaliers probably technically mean more, and the game against Oklahoma City felt particularly illuminating.
But there’s simply nothing in the NBA quite like Celtics vs. Lakers when both teams are championship contenders, and thanks to the aforementioned Mavericks — who self-destructed this season in a way that might not have a historical precedent — the Lakers have been infused by Luka Doncic’s singular offensive greatness.
The Celtics, of course, took advantage of Doncic’s singular defensive deficiencies en route to a title roughly nine months ago. Saturday’s primetime showdown has the potential to be the most interesting game on the NBA’s regular-season calendar all year.
“I would say from my time in the league, I wouldn’t look at the Lakers as rivals,” Tatum said. “We only play them twice. The teams that we play over and over again in the playoffs – Philly would be one of them, and the other teams as well.
“But you respect and understand the history and all the guys that wore the Lakers and Celtics uniform and what it means for the game of basketball and the NBA. It’s an honor to be a part of that, for sure, so I’m certain everybody’s looking forward to that matchup, as they do every single year.”
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