Jayson Tatum's response to Team USA benching is even more clear months later

The Boston Celtics hosted the Golden State Warriors on Wednesday night, and the guys in gold and blue walked out with a victory. It was just the second Celtics loss of the season, and it stemmed from the Warriors’ elite defense in the first half. They completely shut down Boston’s regular style of offense.

However, the subplot of the game (which many fans treated as the main story) was Jayson Tatum’s first chance to go up against Steve Kerr, who was the head coach of Team USA this summer. Kerr decided to bench Tatum in two of Team USA’s games in the Olympics and barely played him in all of the others. Needless to say, Celtics fans were less than thrilled.

For an entire offseason, fans were angry at Kerr and eager to watch Tatum’s first game against the Warriors. But Tatum didn’t share that same anger.

Jayson Tatum still doesn't care about Steve Kerr benchings on Team USA

After the game on Wednesday, Tatum spoke about his take on the situation when asked about all the people who had been hyping up the game.

“That's part of this job,” Tatum said. “That's what I've been dealing with my entire career. People want me to be louder. People want me to be mean, or whatever. One thing about Jayson is like, I'm always going to do what the f*** I want to do, and approach things how I want to approach it, and what I feel is sincere to who I am as a person. 

“Not that it [the outside noise] comes from a bad place. Sometimes it comes from a good place. But people react differently. It's easy to say, if they were in my shoes, what they would do. So, I appreciate when it comes from a good place, but like I said, I'm always going to react, respond, [and] approach things the way I want to.”

Outside of a Vince Staples Instagram story that said, “WE WILL AVENGE JAYSON TATUM,” which Tatum reposted, the Celtics superstar had virtually no reaction to the benchings. Obviously, there was probably a little bit of frustration, but Tatum handled the situation like a professional.

And Kerr said as much. Before the game, he said that his only regret from the situation was how much drama came from it. The real story was how well Tatum, Tyrese Haliburton, and Joel Embiid handled it.

“They all handled themselves with incredible dignity and class, and that's the real story,” Kerr said. “But we live in a time where we have to talk about stuff that actually doesn't really matter.”