BOSTON — In their Game 2 loss to the New York Knicks, the Boston Celtics utilized Jayson Tatum very differently from Game 1. Though the end results were the same, Tatum went from playing mostly on the ball to spending a lot of time screening and cutting away from the primary action.
“I mean, we got great stuff out of him screening,” Joe Mazzulla said of the change. “They didn't want to leave his body, and D-White was able to get downhill. Make some reads [that] we were able to get out of that. And I think, he's always, his versatility, whether it's being a pick-and-roll ball-handler, whether it's being a pick-and-roll screener, that's been able to change some of the play call frequency that we had. We just got to try to find a way to take advantage of that.”
Despite the differences, Tatum still struggled.
Jayson Tatum dropped another clunker in Game 2 loss to Knicks
By the end of the night, Tatum had posted just 13 points on 5-of-19 shooting from the field and 1-of-5 shooting from behind the three-point line, all highlighted by a failure to get a game-winning shot attempt off at the end of regulation.
“I mean, I said it earlier, I take full ownership of the way I’ve played in this series,” Tatum said. “Can’t sugarcoat anything. I need to be better. I expect to be a lot better.”
Regardless of the situations Tatum was put in, he failed to be the same effective player he was throughout the Celtics’ regular-season series against the Knicks.
Knicks have changed their Jayson Tatum coverage
In the regular season, New York played mostly drop defense when Tatum was the ball-handler. Through the first two games of the second round, they have switched everything in the first half and hedged screens in the second half.
Tatum found a bunch of success attacking Karl-Anthony Towns and Mitchell Robinson in space in the first quarter of Game 1, but from that point on, the Knicks have shaken up their coverage.
“They changed their coverages a little bit from Game 1 to Game 2, and we just need to keep making those reads.”
In Game 2, the Knicks pressed up against Tatum, which allowed the Celtics to use him as a screener more. Since they weren’t leaving his body, other guys had more advantageous matchups available to them, and Derrick White was able to dissect the defense by getting into the lane.
Jaylen Brown’s post-ups against smaller guards were also met with less pressure, since Tatums’ gravity was taking up space on the floor.
But once again, when it came down to the final moments of the game, it didn’t matter how Tatum was being used. The Celtics’ floor spacing crumbled, and they passed up open shots for failed attempts at better ones.