Sign up for the Today newsletter
Get everything you need to know to start your day, delivered right to your inbox every morning.
Jayson Tatum returns to MSG, but Knicks hold off Celtics late: 7 takeaways
Jayson Tatum cleared the hurdle, but the Knicks defeated the Celtics for the third time in the regular season.
Jayson Tatum returned to Madison Square Garden for the first time since his catastrophic injury last May, but the shorthanded Celtics fell to the Knicks 112-106 as New York held on to the faint possibility of the 2-seed.
Here are the takeaways.
Jayson Tatum cleared the hurdle
Let’s give some real credit where it’s due to Knicks fans, who recognized that this moment deserved some applause before they recommenced booing the Celtics enthusiastically.
Tatum admitted before the game that he wasn’t particularly excited about the prospect of returning to the building where he tore his Achilles, and he started icy cold from the floor. He was 2-for-11 in the first half, and after the game, he said the return was “a lot, especially at the beginning.”
Advertisement:
But Tatum settled into the game. He was 5-for-11 in the second half and nearly recorded yet another triple-double with 24 points, 13 rebounds, and eight assists, once again looking like a willing and incredibly capable distributor.
Tatum was inefficient (7-for-22 from the floor) and sloppy with the ball (six turnovers), which is a real Rorschach test for both Celtics and Knicks fans.
Celtics fans will want to hand-wave away the inefficiencies as a result of 1) nerves, 2) a tough game against an amped-up Knicks team and 3) exhaustion down the stretch, since he played extended minutes as the primary offensive option sans Jaylen Brown.
Advertisement:
Knicks fans, meanwhile, can quite rightly point out that they have a number of capable, pesky defenders who can bother Tatum, and that they are unlikely to be less amped up in the postseason.
There are, however, a few unequivocal positives.
First, Tatum played 40 minutes. Presumably, he will get Friday’s game against the Pelicans off after playing 38 minutes against the Hornets as well on Tuesday, so his ramp-up for playoff minutes continues to be a real success.
Second, he had a chance to exorcise his demons during the regular season, and while the Celtics lost and he struggled a bit down the stretch, he took on the challenge and cleared the hurdle no worse for the wear.
The Celtics and Knicks seem very likely to face each other again in a few weeks, and presumably when they do, they will have Brown back. Importantly, after Thursday’s game, they should also have a less haunted version of Tatum as well.
The Celtics’ big situation is a bit of an issue
The Celtics didn’t appear interested in giving the Knicks a preview of how they plan to deal with the problem of Karl-Anthony Towns and Mitchell Robinson defensively, sticking Neemias Queta and Nikola Vucevic on the Knicks’ traditional bigs for much of the game.
Advertisement:
In the playoffs, expect a lot more experimentation. One obvious switch, which the Celtics studiously avoided on Friday: Putting a big on Josh Hart and a wing on Towns, which mucks up a lot of what the Knicks want to do.
On Friday, however, the Knicks were treated to a bit of a feast, especially in the fourth quarter as they attacked Queta repeatedly in the pick-and-roll and got shots they really wanted.
How the Celtics approach their big rotation will be interesting. Queta is clearly the starter for myriad reasons (defense, offensive rebounding, vertical spacing), and let’s take this opportunity to show off his improvements as a passer out of the pick-and-roll, because this was the kind of progress the Celtics likely didn’t dare to dream of last summer.
Vucevic has done little to plant his flag as the first big off the bench to date. When he makes 3-pointers, he’s a real threat — and he was 2-for-4 on Thursday, scoring 10 points overall — but he’s shooting a much lower percentage this season than Luka Garza. Offensively, he’s a more versatile threat than Garza, but he will continue to be a target for teams defensively.
Advertisement:
Meanwhile, for all of Garza’s hustle, he isn’t particularly well suited to dealing with the likes of Robinson either.
So while the Celtics will likely have more answers for the Knicks’ bigs than Friday’s showing, that is still a pain point that may cost Joe Mazzulla some sleep when he looks ahead at the road to the Finals.
Baylor Scheierman was lightning in a bottle
Scheierman was otherworldly, an absolutely essential offensive option down the stretch. His shooting was the catalyst that brought the Celtics back from multiple deficits in the third and fourth quarters (just witness his relocation triple in the Queta clip above), and he even hit Jalen Brunson with a nasty pull-up jumper in the third quarter.
Scheierman shot 7-for-8 from the floor and 6-for-7 from 3-point range, finishing with 20 points and innumerable enthusiastic thumbs-up celebrations.
Once again, we should at least raise the question: Is Sam Hauser locked into the starting lineup? The Knicks attacked him offensively, and he shot just 2-for-6 from deep. Hauser can get hot and spot the Celtics a 12-15 point lead in a matter of minutes, and his well-established reputation as a shooter provides gravity, but Scheierman has been a more dynamic player on both ends more consistently this season.
Letting Josh Hart shoot isn’t really viable this year
In previous seasons, the Celtics could allow Josh Hart to shoot on the assumption that even if he made a few, he wouldn’t be able to make enough to beat you over the course of 48 minutes.
Advertisement:
That does not appear to be the case this year. Hart shot the Knicks to a 13-point lead with a flurry in the third quarter, and he closed out the fourth with a pair of daggers. He was 5-for-7 from deep and 10-for-15 overall with a game-high 26 points. Before Celtics fans write that off as a fluke, it should be noted that Hart has made 41.5 percent of his triples on 9.1 attempts per game this season.
Again, the Celtics didn’t look like they had any interest in tipping their hand regarding defensive coverages on Thursday, and Hart’s 3-point improvements certainly will not have gone unnoticed by Mazzulla, so presumably, he wouldn’t get as many clean looks in Game 1 of a series between the Celtics and Knicks.
Still, Hart’s improvements are another pain point the Celtics will need to address.
Payton Pritchard stepped up (again)
You will be unsurprised to hear that on a night when the Celtics were missing a primary scorer, Payton Pritchard stepped up in a big way.
The Knicks didn’t have a lot of answers for Pritchard’s aggressive drives — he drove past the bigs out of pick-and-rolls, he beat guards on iso drives, and he made spot-up 3-pointers facilitated by Tatum’s gravity, all of which is exactly what Celtics fans would expect from him this season.
Pritchard finished with 23 points on 10-for-20 shooting.
This was pretty heartwarming
Tatum’s son, Deuce, was captured by cameras grinning and dancing back and forth after seeing his dad knock down a mid-range jumper while drawing a foul from Mitchell Robinson.
It would be easy to assume Deuce — who is eight — didn’t understand the full gravity of Thursday’s game, but the letter he wrote in Slam last month suggests he probably understood it a lot better than one would think. Deuce is growing up fast.
What’s next
The Celtics are still in the driver’s seat for the 2-seed with two regular season games remaining — they only need a win against the Pelicans on Friday or the Magic on Sunday (or a Knicks loss to either the Raptors or Hornets) to claim it.
Be civil. Be kind.
Read our full community guidelines.To comment, please create a screen name in your profile
To comment, please verify your email address