Ever since he entered the NBA, Jayson Tatum has been evolving. Year in and year out, he’s made improvements to his game, blossoming into the face of the Boston Celtics. With a championship in hand, he’s still looking to push forward, and he’s been playing some of the best basketball of his career since the All-Star break.
But there’s always room to improve. There’s always room to add more layers to a game that’s already one of the most complete in the NBA. Recently, he’s been showing off some new flashes to his offense that have aided the Celtics in big-time ways.
And he doesn’t even need the ball.
Jayson Tatum cutting off the ball has been great for the Celtics
There have always been subtle signs of this layer of Tatum’s game, but in the last two games, he’s utilized it a lot more frequently. Off-ball movement has never been the strong suit of this Celtics offense, which largely derives from winning one-on-one matchups, but Tatum has been parlaying his incredible offensive gravity into open shots for his teammates, all with off-ball cuts.
In the Celtics’ win over the San Antonio Spurs on Saturday night, Jrue Holiday went to set a screen for Jayson Tatum. When Julian Champagnie saw this, he instinctively went to fight over it so he could guard Tatum at the three-point line. But Tatum cut to the basket.
This forced Keldon Johnson to help over from the corner to deny a pass and left rookie Baylor Scheierman wide open in the corner. From there, Luke Kornet made a beautiful cross-court pass to Scheierman, who nailed the jumper.
It all stemmed from Tatum’s immense offensive gravity and ability to recognize the play before it happened. This continued in Boston’s win over the Memphis Grizzlies on Monday.
As the Grizzlies were trying to set their defense up in transition, Payton Pritchard set a screen on Santi Aldama. Tatum immediately cut into the paint, and Aldama and Ja Morant didn’t communicate the switch well enough.
So when Derrick White found Tatum on the cut, Jaren Jackson Jr. had to help over from the corner. All Tatum had to do was kick the ball to Al Horford, who got an open three. He didn’t make the shot, but the process was successful.
Teams are so worried about what Tatum will do with the ball in his hands that they bend around him and give up open shots.
This even leads to complete breakdowns, like what happened earlier in the Grizzlies game. Krisitaps Porzingis set a screen for Tatum to get downhill, and his run to the rim drew two Grizzlies defenders, as they failed to communicate on defense.
Porzingis was left as open as he could possibly be behind the three-point line.
Seeing Tatum capitalize on his offensive talent by bending defenses without even having the ball is a phenomenal sign of progression. And if he continues to take advantage of how much teams worry about him on that end of the floor, the Celtics will continue to get wide-open shots.
