The NBA Playoffs are built on moments. Michael Jordan’s shot to beat the Utah Jazz in the 1998 NBA Finals. Kawhi Leonard’s buzzer-beater to beat the Philadelphia 76ers in 2019. Those are the moments etched in history, woven into the fabric of NBA lore forever.
Not all moments are created equal on that scale. Not everyone gets to be plastered on posters and clipped for the NBA’s highlight reels. NBA Finals and game-winning shots take precedent, but in a league where every possession, shot, and dribble of the basketball can impact the outcome of a single game—of a single series—every moment matters.
On Friday night, the Celtics failed their moment. Starting down a physical, bully-ball Orlando Magic squad up 2-0, they were pushed, shoved, and thrown the ground. Their offense sputtered and they fumbled on the glass. Despite that, they had a chance to tie the game with 0.3 seconds left on the clock, but Derrick White’s inbound pass couldn’t find its mark.
In Game 4, they were in danger of falling victim to the same fate. Up by as many as nine points inthe second quarter, an 11-2 run sent Kia Center into a frenzy and handed Orlando the lead. From there, it was a back-and-forth affair until deep into the fourth quarter. With 4:18 the game was tied at 91 apiece.
A win for the Magic would send the Celtics back to Boston licking their wounds. They would be forced to defend their home court or else risk elimination in the very building they had just lost in twice in a row. But a win would give them a 3-1 series lead and a chance to move on to the second round with a victory at TD Garden.
“It was 91-91 with four minutes,” Jayson Tatum said after the game. “That was the timeout. I was excited for that moment.”
On the first possession after the timeout, Tatum lobbed a near-half-court pass to Kristaps Porzingis at the rim. The big man missed the bunny, but he earned an and-one on the put-back. The next possessions, after a stop, Jaylen Brown pushed the ball in transition and got two free throws. Orlando called a timeout, now down 96-91.
The fire had been stoked. Boston and Orlando had been battling all night—all quarter—neither side able to pull away. The Celtics finally found an opening. They just needed to close it out.
The Celtics needed a moment. But they had already been living in one.
Rewinding the tapes to seven minutes earlier, Tatum had the ball in his hands. Before Porzings’ and-one. Before Brown’s transition push. Before Jamahl Mosley called a timeout to save the Magic from a momentum-induced defeat.
Tatum pulled up over Gary Harris in the mid-range, sinking a jumper to put the Celtics up 84-77. Franz Wagner answered with five straight points of his own, then Tatumd rove past Anthony Black to the rim.
But Black threw him to the ground. The ‘no easy buckets’ Magic sent another Celtics star crashing into the hardwood. There were no fanatics. No extra-cirriculars. Nobody was up in arms. Tatum just sat there on the floor. Holding his wrist. And a smile crept across his face.
He sunk both free throws but Paolo Banchero got an easy dunk on the other end. It was a two-point game, and the seesaw tilted back in Orlando’s favor, ever so slightly.
It didn’t matter. White brought the ball up the floor and kicked it to Tatum across the court. He held it, rocking onto his back foot and staring at the shot clock. Brown screened Banchero off of him, and Anthony Black sat back just a tad bit too far. So Tatum pulled up.
Splash.
That’s when Porzingis knew something was brewing.
“Honestly, he hit, I think it was a three that he hit towards the end of the game, and I thought in my head, I'm like, 'This guy's special. Like, this guy is special,’” Porzingis said post-game.
Fast forward back to Mosley’s timeout. The Celtics up 96-91. One collapse away from a tied series. One moment away from being up 3-1. The clock read 3:21.
A delay-of-game technical gave the Magic a free point, but Wendell Carter Jr. missed his jumper on the ensuing offensive possession. And Tatum smelled blood in the water.
“From when I got here to now, he's developed even more of a killer instinct, and he's been getting us big buckets,” Porzingis said. “In this series in last year's playoffs. Third game, thanks to him, we were right there, and today, again, he was phenomenal.”
Tatum dribbled through Orlando’s defense and got a one-on-one against Banchero in the post. He gave him one shoulder to the chest, stepped back, and drained a middy in the Magic star’s grill. Celtics up six.
Wagner missed a three and Tatum got the ball on the wing yet again. He sized up Banchero, dribbled in, stepped back, and launched a three. But Banchero got too close. Foul on Orlando. A failed challenge later, Tatum went to the charity stripe and drained three free throws in a row. Celtics up nine.
“Just poise. Poise,” Joe Mazzulla said of Tatum’s closing moment. “Having an understanding of your environment. Obviously, some shot-making there, but at the same time, physical drives, getting to the free-throw line. At the end of the day, both teams are playing physical. You have to be able to execute at both ends of the floor, and I thought he did a great job of it.”
The Magic fought back. Banchero got a layup and they hounded Boston in the back-court, forcing an eight-second violation. But Orlando failed to capitalize. Al Horford missed a three, but Payton Pritchard snagged the rebound, and the ball found Tatum once again.
“He wants the ball towards the end, and we trust him fully that he's gonna get a bucket for us,” Porzingis said. “And, yeah, he's been leading us, and we expect that from him.”
With eight seconds left on the shot clock and 50 left in the game, Tatum went to work on Kentavious Caldwell-Pope at the top of the key. He bodied him once and tried to go left, but Caldwell-Pope stepped in his path and picked up a foul.
Tatum stepped through Caldwell-Pope to the free-throw line, and the Magic guard shoved him back. Both players got technical fouls, but they came out of it with much different energies.
Caldwell-Pope was talking. He was frustrated. Upset that his team was on the brink of being down 3-1. Staring daggers at Tatum and yelling at referee Tyler Ford.
Tatum was smiling.
“This is my eighth year in the playoffs. I've played 115 some odd playoff games. I've been here before,” Tatum said. “I've been in these moments. Just stay composed and don't get distracted by outside things or whatever. Just try to make the right read, focus on the next play, stay level-headed, and just do what you can to help your team be in a position to get a win.”
Just as he did after Black threw a hard foul his way, Tatum smiled as Caldwell-Pope shoved him toward the sideline. The very guy who caused him to injure his wrist in Game 1 was now the guy who gave him a chance to put Boston up by nine with under a minute to go. And he did just that.
Still, Orlando refused to give up, as another Banchero layup kept them in the game. But at that point, they had to play the foul game. Tatum made two more free throws after an intentional foul, followed by Horford sinking a pair himself, and the game was over.
Play after play, piece by piece, Tatum carefully constructed a moment. He finished with 16 fourth-quarter points on 3-of-6 shooting from the field and a perfect 9-of-9 from the free-throw line.
“I think he had a hell of a game,” Mosley said post-game. “I think that’s his ability to make tough shots in these moments. Again, I said it the other night, that’s why he’s an All-Star, he’s an All-NBA guy, he finds way to get that done. That’s what he’s capable of doing.”
Winning can be ugly. And against a team as physical and foul-hungry as the Magic, it can be downright monstrous, with bodies strewn all over the court.
Orlando’s Game 3 game plan included enticing Boston into taking bad shots. Making them rush their actions and turn the ball over (which worked, as the Celtics turned the ball over 19 times).
So, when Game 4 reached its tipping point, they needed to do everything possible to avoid those mistakes. They did that. Tatum did that.
“Poise is a great word,” said Brown. “They want to speed you up. They want you to take ill-advised shots. And they try to bait you into that. We just got to be patient. Just be patient. Slow things down, be even more patient, and if you if you got a matchup, get to your spot and then make a play.
“And I think, down the stretch, JT was great at that in the second half down the stretch, in the fourth quarter particularly. And it's gonna be a long playoff run. We gotta close out, but we we're gonna need more of that down the line, for sure.”
Bucket after bucket, foul after foul, Tatum broke the Magic. But not by force. The singular acts with which he scored may have been forceful in and of themselves, but nothing about Tatum’s fourth-quarter heroics were forceful.
No shot was chucked. No drive was made without intentionality. Every action was hand-crafted with a single intent in mind: Win.
“I think that, year after year, just getting older, having more experience, understanding the moment of being in these moments plenty of times,” Tatum said of his growth in these situations.
“Enjoying being in those moments, and not necessarily like take over a game, but being in a position to make the play. And I say it all the time, for myself or for a teammate, you just want to be in a position [to do that].”
A decade from now, people will still remember Jordan’s shot over the Jazz in 1998. Leonard’s game-winner to send the Toronto Raptors to the conference finals will still be recalled. LeBron James’ block in the 2016 NBA Finals. Damian Lillard’s pair of series-winning threes. All will be immortalized.
Tatum’s won’t. In all likelihood, his fourth quarter on Sunday night will be lost to history. A first-round matchup. A two seed against a seven seed. Not a close-out game. It has all the dominance of an all-time moment but not of the historic stakes.
But for the Celtics? For where they were sitting with 12 minutes to go in Game 4? It was everything. It’s what the playoffs are made for.
History may not remember Tatum’s Game 4 fourth quarter, but if the Celtics go on to win the series, it will have changed the outlook of Boston’s entire playoff run. So while eyes may not have been glued to the final few minutes of Celtics-Magic Game 4 in the first round of the 2025 NBA Playoffs, it still contributed to history.
And Tatum was ready to play his part.
“That was fun,” he said.
