Jayson Tatić and the Boston Celtićs

This is the best illustration I could get out of ChatGPT 4o. It’ll do until I have it get a better one.

Nobody’s talking about this, so I will: Jayson Tatum is playing a decoy. More to the point, he is playing Jokić, Dončić, or a bit of both. Not all the time (such as when he’s doing one of those step-back threes with lots of time on the clock, but enough). So let’s call him Jayson Tatić.

Because on offense he’s pulling in double and triple teams and passing expertly to open men. Over and over again. And the passes turn into assists because he is connected to those men. That’s the way the Boston Celtićs work under Joe Mazzula. Connection is everything. They are a team of fully capable all-stars, each willing to give up their own ego and stats for the sake of the team.

So, while the talking heads and talking ‘casts go on about how poor Tatum’s offense seems to be, they miss the misdirection. They assume Jayson Tatum is always wanting to play hero ball, because he can, and because that’s they guy he is. They don’t get that he’s really Jayson Tatić’, and his feint is that he’s always going to shoot, that he’s always going to post up and go one-on-two or one-on-few. Meanwhile, what he’s really doing is pulling in a defense that gives him open men, all of whom he knows, because he’s connected to them psychically, audibly (they talk!) and manually. He is always working to pass, which he does expertly.

Yeah, he turns it over sometimes. So what. He gets assists because he’s a one-man wrecking crew of misdirection, especially when he gets downhill. And the man can pass.

When this series is over, and Boston takes it 4 to 3, 2, 1, or 0, and Jaylen Brown or Jrue Holiday get the MVP (like Andre Iguodala got the MVP a few years back), the Celtics’ success will owe in no small way to Jayson’s teamwork.

There’s a game tonight, so watch for it.