Boston Celtics news: Jayson Tatum becomes youngest Celtic to 5K points
Paul Pierce, Larry Bird, Bill Russell, Kevin McHale, and Bob Cousy are several Boston Celtics legends that don’t own the record of quickest Celtic to reach 5,000 career points.
Nope. That would be the 23-year-old Jayson Tatum, who added the accolade to his resume on Easter Sunday night in front of a limited capacity crowd at the TD Garden.
Certainly, in the age of the pandemic, the massive ovations for such feats are significantly muted, but there is a charm to earning these achievements during a demoralized time in our country. Sporting successes of significance are nice ways to live vicariously through the heroes of the hardwood as a distraction to the deadly pandemic that has reshaped life in America.
Boston Celtics fans have their escape in the form of Tatum’s individual success:
As the team continues its climb out of being a sub-.500 squad, the integration of the newly acquired pieces will determine whether this is a first-round exit waiting to happen or a team able to sustain Eastern Conference finals levels of success.
On Sunday night, Evan Fournier continued his recent shooting surge while Robert Williams established himself as a legitimate immediate option to be the starting center:
The final score read 116-86 against a Charlotte Hornets team missing both Gordon Hayward and LaMelo Ball on Sunday night, but Tatum scoring his 5,000th point might have been the key takeaway to what was a wall-to-wall dominant showing from the Boston Celtics.
Philadelphia comes next on the schedule in a game with potential postseason implications.