Jun 10, 2024 7 min read

Toughness Is Making The Right Play

Like Maverick's old man, Jayson Tatum did it right in Game 2 against the Dallas Mavericks. (Image credit: "Top Gun")

In Game 2 of the NBA Finals, Dallas shot better than Boston from the field, and pulled down more rebounds as well. Boston shot 25% from the three-point land, and nearly half of their shots were threes. These are hallmarks of Celtics losses in this era. But led by their best player – who no matter what any talking head wants to tell you, is very much still Jayson Tatum – the Celtics relentlessly made the right play, and did so until they pulled away and pulled out the win.

I just want to zoom out on Tatum's performance to put it into perspective. He shot poorly. No one is going to debate that. He missed some shots he usually makes, and there were a couple of lay-ups where he tried to go around players instead of through them. Those hurt. But tonight, he pulled down his trademark tough rebounds in traffic. More impressively, he also became just the 14th player ever to record 12+ assists in multiple NBA Finals games. I say multiple because he also recorded 13 assists in Game 1 of the 2022 NBA Finals.

Let me say it again, for emphasis – tonight Jayson Tatum became just the 14th player in NBA history to record 12 or more assists in multiple NBA Finals games. Here's the list:

24 times: Magic Johnson
11 times: Bob Cousy
Five times: Dennis Johnson & John Stockton
Four times: LeBron James & Jerry West
Three times: Michael Jordan
Twice: Larry Bird, Jimmy Butler, Walt Frazier, Draymond Green, Norm Nixon, Isiah Thomas (2x)

Take another look at the names above. Those are 11 of the greatest players in NBA history (and also Jimmy Butler and Norm Nixon).

Recording 12+ assists in an NBA Finals game is something that only 30 players have done at all. Here's the 16 players who have done it once:

Tiny Archibald, Michael Cooper, Anfernee Hardaway, Jrue Holiday, Lionel Hollins, John Johnson, Nikola Jokić, Jason Kidd, Slick Leonard, Jamal Murray, Scottie Pippen, Robert Reid, Oscar Robertson, Rajon Rondo, Bill Russell, Eric Snow

While there are a couple of anonymous players on this list, you have more greats on this list, including Oscar Robertson, Bill Russell, and Nikola Jokić. Tatum is in pretty incredible company here.

Overall, these 30 players have only achieved this 85 times. Or, if you remove the 24 times (!) Magic did it, 29 players have done it 61 times. Also, a full 20 of those times happened before the NBA-ABA merger, so if you want to take those out, then since the merger, then 23 non-Magic players have done it a total of 41 times.

No matter how you slice it, what Tatum did tonight was historic. And he did it by just making the right play over and over again. He did it by breaking down the defense and finding the right shooter. Sportscenter reported that Tatum's seven assists in the second quarter were the most by a player in any NBA Finals quarter since Stockton in 1998. That's a long time. And the craziest part is that he did it on a night when the C's were ice cold from deep.

In that second quarter, Tatum drew multiple bodies in the paint before finding a wide-open teammate on four separate plays. Once he hunted a mismatch (Kyrie Irving on Kristaps Porzingis), and once he made a quick pass to Holiday when Luka Doncic got caught watching and got quickly out of position on a switch. His final assist is the one you see him make most often, as he collapsed the defense and quickly kicked it out to a shooter – in this case, Holiday. That one gave the C's their first two-possession lead at 54-49, and even though Dallas would come right back down and cut it to 54-51 before halftime, that Tatum assist to Holiday felt like a breakthrough.

It's the four passes in the paint that I think were key. Those are times when Tatum could have forced the issue; could have played hero ball; could have tried to draw a foul out of thin air. He's done it before. Instead, he found guys for easy buckets. Most importantly, he was putting his head down and getting to the rim. In the second half, nine of his 13 shots were two pointers. He wasn't settling for stepback threes, he wasn't playing lazily. He was taking initiative, beating his initial matchup, and forcing the Mavs into making choices they didn't want to make. And when they did, he made the right play.

The behavior spread. Holiday pulled down 11 rebounds. Al Horford pulled down seven. Derrick White had three steals and two blocks, including two really clutch plays late in the game. Even Sam Hauser, who was 0-for-5 from the field, was a +1 in his 10 minutes of action, because he didn't focus on the misses, and came back and competed hard on defense. Payton Pritchard only had 3.3 seconds to shine, and he took advantage of those 3.3 seconds to hit a backbreaking buzzer beating three at the end of the third. It was a total team performance, fueled by the team's engine.

Dallas Got Everything They Needed Except Clutch Play from Their Stars

The Boston defense grinded Dallas' two best players into paste in the second half. The Mavericks actually couldn't have asked for a better game from their other three starters. Derrick Jones Jr., PJ Washington, and Daniel Gafford shot a combined 16-for-29. That's usually a recipe for success for any team. Except that Kyrie Irving and Luka Doncic disappeared. After the duo shot a combined 14-for-24 in the first half, they shot just 2-for-5 in the third quarter, and then 3-for-11 in the fourth for a combined 5-for-16 second half.

There were a lot of people – I mean A LOT of people – talking before the series started about how the Celtics weren't going to win close games in this series because Luka and Irving were just so clutch. But that's not what happened tonight. Luka did have six assists in that quiet scoring third quarter, but he also had three turnovers. And in the fourth quarter, he had one of the most headscratching turnovers I've ever seen, when D White played free safety on a jump pass that Luka threw from the backcourt with his momentum carrying him the wrong way. Perhaps he thought they were going to get called for an eight-second count backcourt violation, but it seemed like Washington had gotten it over the line before Jrue Holiday deflected it. Either way, Doncic panicked because Holiday picked up at half court, and White was there to pounce on the mistake. Incredible defense.

Oops

Luka Doncic had eight turnovers in the game, making him just the eighth player to record eight or more turnovers in an NBA Finals game. And yet, the biggest mistake Luka made in this game wasn't one of his turnovers, but rather was something he just can't seem to help – he talked shit to the wrong guy. The wrong guy, specifically, is Al Horford. With just over a minute left in the game, Luka got Al on his hip, and dropped in a lay-up for an and-one. Al tumbled to the ground, and when he did Luka looked down at him and said something. If I can quote Vivian Ward – big mistake! Big. Huge. Al got up and gave Luka the exact same look he gave to Giannis Antetokounmpo before he ended Giannis' very, very short reign as the league's alpha male in the 2022 playoffs. Here's tonight's look:

Here was the look in 2022:

In case you don't remember what I'm talking about from 2022, or just want to re-live it, here you go:

I wanted to make sure I wasn't hallucinating, so I texted my friend who is a very close Al Horford watcher, and she confirmed that she had seen it too.

Luka fucked around, and he is absolutely going to find out in Game 3. Count on that.

Other Game 2 Observations:

After playing exactly 3:26 in the fourth quarter of Game 1, Kristaps Porzingis played exactly 3:26 in the fourth quarter of Game 2. This time, however, he came out after tweaking his leg in some sort of way. He seemed to be limping, so we'll have to see how he comes out in Game 3. Beyond the injury though, he once again wasn't much of a factor in the second half. He was a +7, which was a team high, but he only took three shots, making one, and had just one block, one rebound, and one assist. Credit to the C's – they ran away with Game 1 when Porzingis was dominant, but they also won Game 2 when he was average. And credit to Mazzulla, as bringing Porzingis off the bench looked like the right call in both games.
Jaylen Brown was once again efficient from the field, shooting 8-for-15 overall, and 5-for-10 in the second half. He's closing in on a historic shooting playoffs, which – if the C's win the series – is going to leave him in pole position for MVP, because the media only understands good shooting.
What else can you really say about Jrue Holiday? He's amazing. He had the most efficient shooting performance of his playoff career with his 11-for-14 outing. Entering tonight, Jrue had hit 10+ field goals in 13 of his 85 career playoff games. His average number of shots in those games? 21.6. He never hit the mark in less than 15 shots, as he did tonight. One of the games was his 11-for-30 performance vs. Boston in 2022's Game 4. Even though Milwaukee won that game, it was shooting performances like that that eventually got him traded. The difference is that in Milwaukee he was their only reliably healthy player who could also dribble more than four times without turning the ball over. In Boston, every player in the Finals rotation can do that, and Jrue finds himself in more advantageous situations, and is indeed taking advantage, just like Brad Stevens drew it up. It's a beautiful thing.
In the second half, Dallas played five bench players for ~23 total minutes. Collectively, they took a total of three shots, pulled down one rebound, and had one assist. At least they hit two of those three shots? The Celtics bench also only put in two shots in the second half, but Boston's bench players played ~5 fewer minutes, and were a collective +11. Dallas' fivesome was -16, and Jason Kidd's lack of faith in them meant that he was only able to get Luka 30 seconds of rest in the third quarter, which was likely a factor in the fourth.