"Show Him Who You Are!"

Jayson Tatum was struggling. Anyone could see it. At the start of the game, it seemed like he didn't get a couple of calls that he should have. But then he also airballed a three. It's hard to pin too much on the refs when you airball a three. Still, by the end of the third quarter, you could see he was agitated.

I watched Game 6 after the fact via DVR, and with a friend. As you know, this newsletter exists because I quit Twitter. Apparently, by the end of that third quarter, at least some people on Twitter were trying to ship Tatum out of Boston. This makes me glad I quit Twitter, because I never stopped believing in Tatum. I like to think I watch the game with pretty objective eyes. I analyzed sports as my profession for a decade, and have been doing it otherwise for most of my life. But there are a few players for whom I could be credibly accused of being an apologist for. Jayson Tatum is one of them.

With eight minutes left in the fourth quarter, Tatum was being guarded by De'Anthony Melton, with Joel Embiid lurking. So he made the right play, he whipped a cross-court pass to Marcus Smart for a wide-open three. Smart missed. The Celtics trailed by one at the time. And I turned to my friend, and I said, "I don't care how badly Tatum is shooting, he's our best player. If we're going to lose this series, I want it to be with Tatum shooting the ball." Fast forward nearly four minutes, and he had only taken one shot, for which he drew a foul that he possibly didn't earn but what I rationalized as karmic justice for a call or two he didn't get in the first half. And then, SPLASH. Right in Embiid's eye.

Tatum reminded Embiid who he was in that moment, and that was all it took. Brian Scalabrine has spent the entire season saying "With Tatum, it only takes one," and the end of Game 6 was the purest demonstration of that ethos. Tatum woke up, and I don't think we'll see the same struggles tomorrow in Game 7. Tatum is usually very measured in his words. It's why he's in countless TV ads these days. He's a young dad with a good look who always says the right thing. So, after the game, when he said, "I'm, humbly, one of the greatest basketball players in the world," those were the words of a person who has fully regained their confidence. I don't expect it will waver again.

The Warriors' Future

I wanted my rematch. I really did. But it never looked promising from the Golden State Warriors side this season. The season started with Draymond Green punching Jordan Poole, and ended with Klay Thompson shooting 3-for-19, often on shots so wide open it seemed like the Los Angeles Lakers were audaciously (and correctly) daring one of the best shooters who has ever lived to shoot some more. Thompson was a game-worst -33. Thompson has shot the Warriors back into many a game, but I can't help wonder where he and the Warriors go from here.

Thompson only has one more year left on his deal, and so the temptation would be to ride it out, but if you subscribe to the notion that you have to have incredibly short-term thinking if you're to maximize every good Stephen Curry season you have left, can you pay $43 million who just shot .343 in the second round and quite honestly doesn't bring much else to the table at this point? You do if Curry still believes in him, but the Warriors have a lot of hard decisions, and Curry is not a sentimental fool. I'm fascinated by their offseason.

Are the Nuggets Really the Favorite?

Everyone is rushing to anoint the Denver Nuggets as the favorite. Certainly, they'll have home court advantage, and because of the Mile High altitude, it is a true home court advantage. But while the Nuggets have looked good these playoffs, and have the best offensive player in the league on their team, they haven't exactly beat any juggernauts to get to where they are.

The Minnesota Timberwolves never got more than three games above .500 all season, and played the first round without one of their best defenders (Jaden McDaniels) or banged up. The T-Wolves started Nickeil Alexander-Walker in four of the five games. They were the only four games he had started for the team, as in his 23 regular season games he had averaged just 15.5 minutes per game. He averaged 29.6 in the first round. The T-Wolves were not a good team to begin with, and they weren't even playing with a full deck. And they still took a game off of Denver.

Things weren't much different with the Phoenix Suns. Their two good players, Devin Booker and Kevin Durant, averaged 40.5 and 41.1 minutes in the series, respectively. No one else averaged more than 29. Watching the Suns in that series was like watching the episode of "The Simpsons" where Homer learns how to box. Eventually, they got tired and fell over.

Durant shot 2-for-11 in the first half of Game 6, and looked like he was nearly asleep in his postgame press conference. I would say I couldn't blame him, except he was the one who forced the Suns to gut their team for him so he could get out of Brooklyn and onto a team with a new owner that he could more easily push around.

In that final game, the Suns started Cameron Payne, Landry Shamet, and Jock Landale around Booker and Durant. It was the first start of these playoffs for Shamet, and also the first playoff start in his tenure with Phoenix overall. The same goes for Landale. There's a pretty decent chance neither one ever starts a playoff game ever again. Payne is a decent enough backup, but ask yourself this – would any of those guys have seen the floor in the Sixers-Celtics series or the Lakers-Warriors series? My answer is no. Maybe Payne gets a few minutes, but as far as I'm concerned he's no better than Shake Milton or Payton Pritchard, two guys who are not seeing much floor time right now.

Does that mean that the Nuggets won't beat whoever is in front of them? Does it mean the Lakers can stay glued together for another series, this one being their toughest yet? No, and no. It just means I'm not really in a rush to crown the Nuggets. Beating LeBron James is going to require a lot more focus and precision.