Welcome to "One Play!" Throughout the 2021-22 NBA season, our TSN staff will break down certain possessions from certain games and peel back the curtains to reveal their bigger meaning.
Today, Celtics star Jayson Tatum takes the spotlight.
Context: There was no shortage of excitement in Game 1 between the Celtics and Nets.
The Celtics led by double figures entering the final quarter, but Kyrie Irving came alive to get the Nets back in the game. Irving scored 18 of his game-high 39 points in the fourth quarter and hit a 3-pointer with 45.9 seconds remaining to give the Nets a three-point lead.
Jaylen Brown responded with a dunk, setting the stage for a wild finish with Jayson Tatum sneaking behind the Nets to score a game-winning layup at the buzzer.
How did the Nets lose track of Tatum of all people? Let's take a closer look.
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The play:
TATUM GAME WINNER 🥶 pic.twitter.com/BMqJYiolNt
— NBA on TNT (@NBAonTNT) April 17, 2022
Breakdown: Al Horford rebounds a missed 3-pointer from Kevin Durant and quickly gives the ball to Derrick White, who then advances it to Brown. With the clock winding down, Brown wastes no time attacking the basket, getting by the smaller Goran Dragic and drawing an additional defender in Bruce Brown.
Bruce Brown's double prevents Jaylen Brown from getting to the rim, but Jaylen Brown calmly stops and pivots in the opposite direction.
Now's a good time to take stock on who everyone on the Nets is defending.
Irving has White on the right wing, Durant picks up Tatum at the top of the perimeter, Nicolas Claxton is on Horford on the low block and Dragic stays on Jaylen Brown.
Bruce Brown? He parks himself in the paint just in case Jaylen Brown tries to attack again.
That means nobody is guarding Smart, who makes himself as big of a target as possible by waving his arms around.
Spotting Smart, who scored 20 points on 4-for-9 shooting from 3-point range in this one, from the corner of his eye, Brown kicks the ball out to him. That draws not one, but two defenders in Bruce Brown and Claxton.
Smart doesn't settle for the shot. Instead, he gets Brown and Claxton in the air with a fake and takes one dribble towards the basket.
This is where it gets interesting.
Not wanting Smart to get a straight-line drive or Horford to roll to the paint, Dragic rotates off of Brown. White relocates to the right corner, but Irving helps all the way off of him.
The Nets should be in decent position, but ... they forget about Tatum.
Both Dragic and Irving are focused on the ball and Durant loses sight of Tatum when he makes a cut towards the basket.
Smart passes it to Tatum, Tatum spins around Irving and lays the ball in to give the Celtics the win at the buzzer.
Why it matters: A few things.
First, the obvious one: Boston overcame a monster game from Irving to take a 1-0 lead. Plays like this can end up being the difference in a series.
Two, great patience by Smart. As Draymond Green noted after the game, the old Smart may have settled for a contested 3-pointer, but the new Smart had his point guard hat on.
And there’s the difference in the Celtics team. Last year Marcus Smart would’ve taken that shot. Ime got him to buy in and be the Marcus smart everyone loved out of Ok State. BEAUTIFUL! Looking like a true PG again! That’s what made Him special!
— Draymond Green (@Money23Green) April 17, 2022
Even Tatum, who has been teammates with Smart for five seasons, thought he was going to shoot it.
"We all thought Smart was gonna shoot it," Tatum said after the game. "So last-second shot, just crash the glass ... But when he took that dribble, we just kind of made eye contact and he made a great pass and I just had to make a layup."
Three, Tatum's game-winner is going to get a lot of the attention, but it shouldn't overshadow Boston's last defensive stand.
The Celtics finished the season with the best defensive rating in the league. Even without Robert Williams, who was both a Defensive Player of the Year and an All-Defensive candidate, they have the smarts, length and versatility to match up with and fluster just about anyone.
They put that on full display on the possession prior. Smart applied pressure on Irving while Horford abandoned Bruce Brown to double him. (You think the Celtics wanted to get the ball out of his hands?) Durant received the ball with 4.0 seconds remaining on the shot clock, which is usually enough time for him to create something, but Tatum defended him perfectly, forcing him into a tightly contested 3-point attempt.
It doesn't get much better than this:
The @celtics were the #1 defense in the NBA during the regular season, and they showed it on the final defensive possession of the Game 1.
— NBA (@NBA) April 17, 2022
Check out the full sequence leading to Jayson Tatum's #TissotBuzzerBeater to win it! pic.twitter.com/c9CU2akJ4Y
Tatum, by the way, wasn't just special offensively, finishing with 31 points and scoring the game-winning layup. He helped the Celtics limit Durant to 23 points on 9-for-24 shooting from the field. There aren't many players in the league today who can impact the game on both ends at the level Tatum can.
It's only one game, but the Celtics showed why they're a legitimate contender to come out of the Eastern Conference.
