The Boston Celtics took a short holiday trip down south on Monday night for a game against the Orlando Magic. Sam Hauser was listed on the injury report leading into the contest but was cleared to play, giving Boston their first fully healthy injury report in a while. That was until Jayson Tatum was a late addition just minutes prior to tip-off.
Tatum tried to play but was eventually ruled out officially at halftime due to a non-Covid illness. Boston’s offense sputtered throughout the game, enduring one of their worst offensive outputs of the season and falling to a Paolo Banchero-less, Franz Wagner-less Magic squad.
And the game should lead to hating NBA fans making a realization about Tatum that the Celtics and their fanbase already knew.
Jayson Tatum's impact cannot be denied
From the playoffs to the Olympics to now, lots of NBA fans around the league have expressed their hatred for Tatum. They think he’s overrated, calling him a role player and the second-best player on his team.
One Twitter user even claimed that Tatum is a product of the Celtics’ great drafting, and without it, he’s just be any other All-Star. That nobody gameplans for Tatum. That he’s nowhere near the player people think he is.
Well, without him, Boston’s offense looked very different on Monday night.
First and foremost, the Magic deserve a ton of credit for their defense. They are one of the best defenses in the league for the reason, and also one of the best teams at taking away three-point shots. Jalen Suggs is incredible, Trevelin Queen looks like a real NBA role player, and the whole roster plays together extremely well in that end of the floor.
But the Celtics didn’t just fail to meet their usual quota of three-point attempts. They were miles away. Orlando’s defense was part of it, but that’s where Tatum would have been useful.
Boston averages nearly 51 three-point attempts per game. They only got up 33 against the Magic. With Tatum in the lineup, the floor would have been spaced better, the defense would have been forced to collapse more, and the Celtics’ offense would have looked much closer to normal.
Jaylen Brown did his best to make up for the absence of Tatum, but it wasn’t enough. If there were ever a game to exemplify the impact Tatum has on this Celtics team, it was this one. This was some of the best-possible proof for how talented he is.
The Celtics are infinitely better with Tatum on the floor than off. Just because the front office is great at their job doesn’t take away from how talented Tatum is.
Fans everywhere can call him a role player all they want, but Tatum is one of the best players in the NBA, and Monday was a perfect example of why.