Jayson Tatum's take on game-winner is exactly what fans should want to hear

The Boston Celtics barely avoided disaster on Saturday night. Well, as much of a disaster a team can have in the depths of November. The 2-11 Toronto Raptors were in town, and a 35-point Jakob Poeltl masterclass kept the game close for the entire night. The only thing that separated the two sides was a Jayson Tatum game-winner at the end of overtime. And even then, Tatum could have ended the game much sooner.

As the game wound down at the end of the fourth quarter, Tatum found himself with the ball in his hands, as he usually does. He created space in the mid-range as Ochai Agbaji went tumbling to the ground, but his jumper didn’t even hit the rim.

Luckily for the Celtics, Tatum had better luck in OT.

Jayson Tatum never loses confidence

A broken play left a Boston guy tumbling to the ground this time around, as Davion Mitchell bowled into Jaylen Brown, creating a broken play. Brown was seemingly supposed to get the ball, but when the officials didn’t call a foul, Tatum was left to his own devices.

He got to work on Agbaji, waited until the last second, and sent up a triple from deep behind the arc. Cash.

“It felt good to finally hit one of those,” Tatum said. “Obviously, after the horrible miss I had at the end of regulation. So, it felt good to bounce back and, you know, hit the shot for the win.”

Seeing a shot miss as badly as Tatum’s did at the end of regulation could have sent some players on a mental spiral, questioning whether or not they should be taking a shot in that spot.

But not Tatum. He was more than comfortable to take an even more difficult shot in the same situation five minutes later.

“I got a lot of problems in life. Confidence has never been one of them,” Tatum said. “I work too hard at my craft. I've played too much basketball to ever doubt the next shot. Whether it's an in-and-out miss, or whether I missed the entire rim. I know what I'm capable of, and you always believe that the next one is going in.”

That’s the exact type of mentality Celtics fans should want their star player to have. For as many times Celtics fans have complained about Tatum’s struggles to make big-time shots in the clutch, it would be even worse if he was scared of those moments.