Boston Celtics: 3 thoughts and concerns from win over 76ers

Thought 2 – Jayson Tatum’s place within the offense

Nobody is denying that Jayson Tatum is a budding star. He scored 116.8 points per 100 shot attempts (72nd percentile in the league) with a usage rate of 18.5 percent (64th percentile) in his rookie season, per Cleaning the Glass. He was the first Boston Celtics rookie to score 20 points in four straight playoff games since Larry Bird, and is now the youngest player ever to accomplish that feat (stealing the honor from Kobe Bryant). He’s second to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in playoff points for a rookie. And forget the stats – watch him play, and it’s evident his scoring ability is flat-out special. Watch this ridiculous shot.

He didn’t even look phased. He shot that with the confidence of Kobe (who he worked out with this summer, by the way) and made it look easy even though it was a ridiculous shot.

But here’s the thing – on a team that’s stacked with capable scorers, including three guys with All-Star appearances…do you want Tatum taking those shots? With 16 seconds left on the shot clock, no less?

Writing this section feels ridiculous after a night like he just had (23 points, 9-17 from the field, 9 rebounds). He led the team in scoring and did it efficiently. If he did that every night, you’d certainly take that. But it’s hard to deny that Tatum’s shot selection was weird. Watch this clip.

That’s a lot of dribbling around, and the result was a contested mid-range jumper. And that’s okay, sometimes. Heck, maybe it’s okay a lot – he did hit it. He is a very solid shooter off the dribble and in traffic, and his ability to hit mid-range jumpers in isolation is very impressive, especially given his age.

But this was a thing all last night, and all preseason. He was known as an isolation scorer going into the draft, and that scared some teams off. Then he shut everyone up in his rookie year by playing with great efficiency and working within the team concept on offense – he only went rogue when he had to.  But consistently throughout the preseason and throughout last night’s game, he hunted for his shot and took contested jumpers when there were better options. It’s like he’s regressing to his college bad habits.

Notice I described this as a “thing,” not a “problem.” Maybe it’s not a problem. It’s so hard to say. Some teams in the league are trending away from the Beautiful Game that was considered the only way to win for years. The Rockets had a historically great offense playing a ton of iso –  it’s not inherently bad.

But even Kevin Durant, perhaps the best scorer of this generation, gets a lukewarm reaction when he takes these kinds of shots. Even if you hit them at a high enough rate to statistically justify taking them, going rogue messes with an offensive system in a way that usually hurts the team. The whole rhythm of the offense is thrown off. Even when you are successful looking for your own offense, you’re letting the defense off the hook by not doing more

Maybe this isn’t a problem even if it continues. Maybe it won’t continue at all – maybe Tatum is just taking these kinds of difficult shots because the offense hasn’t found its rhythm yet. It’s probably nothing to worry about, at all. But it’s definitely something to keep an eye on.