Jayson Tatum’s buzzer beater lifts Celtics over Raptors, but paint woes continue

On By Littum

BOSTON — Looking to end the game in overtime Saturday night, Jayson Tatum didn’t even turn to look at the rim, much less begin his move, until the clock dipped under six seconds.

Tatum had reasons for his patient approach. Tied with the Toronto Raptors, the Celtics wanted to secure the final shot no matter what. When the ball first went to Tatum with about 12 seconds left, the team’s primary goal was to use up the entire remaining clock. He first looked to Jaylen Brown, another option on the play, but Brown tumbled to the field after contact from linebacker Davion Mitchell. After seeing the collision, Tatum thought one of the umpires would surely blow the play to death. For a second or so, Tatum stood still with his back to the basket about 30 feet away from the Celtics hoop, waiting for a whistle.

“I really paused for a second,” Tatum said.

When the bad call never came, the pressure fell on Tatum. Even though he had missed a potential game-winner at the end of regulation, and not just by an inch or two, Tatum said he would never back down from a moment like that. The players he admired growing up, including Kobe Bryant, could draw on their biggest misses. They always wanted the ball back, no matter how many times they missed.

With 5.5 seconds left, Tatum turned to the basket, jab stepped left and took three dribbles to make a long stepback 3-pointer. It fell through the hoop as time expired to give the Celtics a 126-123 victory.

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

Although Tatum has always been confident, he entered Saturday on a long drought in late-game situations. Dating back to February 25, 2023, when he knocked off the 76ers with a long 3-pointer moments before the buzzer, he had missed 11 straight shots with a chance to either tie or take the lead in the final five seconds of the fourth. quarter or overtime, including that at the end of regulatory Saturday.

Tatum’s first chance to hit a game-winner Saturday night couldn’t have gone much worse. At the end of regulation, his defender went down, but Tatum still couldn’t come close to sinking a long two-point shot. His attempt, which he called “terrible,” veered too far left to hit the rim. It crashed violently off the glass instead, forcing the game into overtime.

“Yeah, frustrated,” Tatum said. “You want to make every shot you take. Especially in an opportunity like that, you want to seize the moment. But we have overtime. We had more time, another chance to redeem ourselves and figure out a way to still win the game on.”

Thanks to Tatum, the Celtics did. Afterwards, they seemed to enjoy reliving even the painful parts of their close victory. In one corner of the locker room, a group of players wondered how Jakob Poeltl finished against them on Saturday. One of them pointed out that Poeltl shot 16 for 19 from the field. Another said he has always been able to make the float he used so powerfully against them. They went back and forth about Poeltl’s big play, smiling and laughing as they could because they won anyway.

They almost didn’t. The Celtics, whose rim protection has faltered early in the season, allowed Toronto to score 76 points in the paint. Although head coach Joe Mazzulla believed the number was somewhat misleading because Poeltl’s floater is “a shot that you’re willing to give up over time,” Brown sounded tired of his team’s recent interior defense. In a loss to Atlanta last week, the Celtics gave up 68 points in the paint to the Hawks without Trae Young.

“Teams don’t beat us at the 3-point line,” Brown said. “It’s not like we’re going to encourage teams to shoot 3s or anything, but we’re definitely not going to just keep giving up layup after layup after layup, so we’ve got to figure some things out. We’ll see , and we will adjust.”

The Hawks and Raptors may not be giants, but both rank near the top of the league in points in the paint per game. match. They get to the hoop consistently against every opponent. Still, the Celtics have some details to shore up on defense.

They were not penalized in the standings for their shortcomings on Saturday. Tatum made sure of that with his buzzer-beating 3-pointer. Although his recent track record in such situations has not been great, attempts at the end of the clock almost always end in low percentage looks for any player. Because of that, even the best players typically shoot inefficiently at potential game winners. Tatum has hit enough clutch shots over the years that the Celtics can rely on him in any scenario. His list of key buckets, both in the regular season and the playoffs, is long.

“I just remind him of the work he puts in every day,” Mazzulla said. “A lot of times, more people miss game-winners than they make them. So just have a perspective of understanding, you’ve got to be willing to take it, and when you don’t get it, you’ve got to be willing to shoot the next one . So he has the work ethic, the mental toughness to work through all those things, and you just have to trust the work ethic that you put in, and he does.”

The other Celtics players sounded excited to avoid five minutes of extra basketball. Al Horford said double overtime “wouldn’t have been.”

“The last thing we wanted to do is go into double overtime against the Toronto Raptors,” Brown reiterated.

Tatum’s big shot allowed the Celtics to walk away with a lopsided victory. For him personally, the bucket was meaningful. He said it “felt good to finally hit one of them.”

“Every kid growing up, in their driveway or in a gym or in a park, counted down out loud and saw themselves in a moment like this,” Tatum said. “For me, I’ve always wanted to be a part of those moments and never worry if you’re missing or anything like that. I have never been afraid of the result, good or bad.”

(Photo of Jayson Tatum’s game-winning basket: Winslow Townson/Getty Images)