The Boston Celtics took to the hardwood Thursday night for Game 1 of the 2022 NBA Finals, making it the franchise’s first appearance on the big stage since the 2009-10 season.
The incredibly polarizing contest saw several momentum swings and momentous performances put forth by the bevy of talented ballers participating in the championship round, and, while the Golden State Warriors were the ones who came right out of the gates swinging (particularly Stephen Curry who had 21 points on six made 3-pointers in the first period alone), ultimately it was the C’s who came away victorious from the exhibition, winning by a final score of 120-108.
In the contest, we saw several Celtics players having themselves studly nights on offense, especially in the scoring department, with four individuals logging 18 or more points throughout the 48 minutes of regulation.
Shockingly, budding superstar and scoring phenom, Jayson Tatum, was not one of these individuals to post such numbers, as he finished things off by dropping just 12 points on an incredibly lackluster 3-of-17 shooting from the floor and 1-of-5 shooting from deep.
However, while his showing in this department was less than ideal, he didn’t let it diminish the impact he had on the game’s final outcome. Throughout this season, we’ve seen Tatum commit more to being a distributor, especially when his shot’s simply not falling which, as a result, led to him registering a career-high in assist averages (4.4 per game).
On opening night of the final round, we saw this new aspect to his in-game approach on full display, as he focused more on getting his teammates clean looks at scoring opportunities rather than continuously chucking up shots in order to try and get himself out of his slump and into a rhythm.
Due to his shift in mentality, Tatum went on to dish out a whopping 13 assists, marking it, not only as a career-high for the All-NBA wing but also as an all-time high for anyone in league history in their NBA Finals debut.
In turn, the Boston Celtics cornerstone went on to surpass league legends Michael Jordan, John Stockton, and Isiah Thomas (all previously tied with 12 assists) to take the top spot in this statistical category.
Every day, Jayson Tatum finds himself being mentioned in the same breath as some of the all-time greats of this league and, in his first Finals outing, he went on to surpass some of them with his play.
Not too shabby for a guy who had an “off” night.