Jayson Tatum’s 40-point masterpiece leads Celtics to blowout over Knicks: 6 takeaways
Jayson Tatum's poster dunk for his first bucket of the game was a sign of things to come on Saturday night. Read more on Boston.com.
Celtics
Jayson Tatum dominated the Knicks on Saturday night. (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images)
5 minutes to read
Jayson Tatum led the Celtics to an eye-opening 131-104 win over the Knicks on Saturday, as they bounced back loudly from a disappointing loss.
Here are the takeaways.
With 2:31 remaining in the third quarter and the Knicks waving their arms trying not to fall over the edge of a cliff, Jayson Tatum backed the ball out behind the 3-point line with Mikal Bridges defending him. The shot clock wound down, and Tatum took one dribble followed by an enormous side step to his right, which created plenty of space between himself and Bridges. He launched a 29-foot triple, which caught nothing but net and elicited one of the more despairing noises you will hear all season from the Madison Square Garden crowd.
There was plenty of time left in the game, but Tatum’s three felt very much like a dagger – the Knicks had walked a lead that ballooned as high as 18 in the first half all the way down to three in the third quarter before a series of triples by the Celtics helped push the advantage back up to 16. Tatum played a huge role – he scored 19 points in the third quarter alone, part of a 40-point statline (13-for-26, 7-for-14 from three, six rebounds, four assists) that would have been gaudier if Payton Pritchard hadn’t ground his heel into the Knicks in the fourth after Tatum checked out, ending Tatum’s evening prematurely.
Advertisement:Tatum was brilliant on Saturday – the kind of game that he plays every so often during a season that gives Celtics fans the ammunition they need to counter any argument made against him online. He opened the proceedings by rooting Karl-Anthony Towns to the floor with an in-and-out dribble and a monstrous two-handed slam over Precious Achiuwa on Boston’s first basket of the game. A few minutes later, he made Achiuwa do a stumbling two-step back into the paint with a cross behind his back before burying a 3-pointer.
Spike Lee had the audacity to bark something at Tatum in the third, so Tatum hit several shots in a row and barked something back. And in the fourth quarter, Tatum scored five more points to ice things before taking a seat.
Advertisement:Generally, teams force the ball out of Tatum’s hands, and he gives it up happily enough – content to let his highly talented teammates feast off the 2-on-1s created by his gravity.
On Saturday, Tatum had a chance to remind a packed Madison Square Garden – as well as a national TV audience watching on ABC – why all of those teams would rather double him than let him cook: He is a punishingly great player who is great both because of his ability to let the game develop around him and to demolish teams when they give him the chance.
The Knicks are just 2.5 games behind the Celtics in the standings, but Saturday’s game felt like a statement by the Celtics that the distance between the two teams on the court is far greater.
The Celtics feast on teams that have offensive juggernaut players who are also defensive liabilities, especially when those players are either A) undersized guards or B) slow-footed bigs, and especially when those undersized guards and/or slow-footed bigs are key parts of the team who can’t be easily subbed out.
The Knicks have two such players, and against the Celtics, that might simply not be tenable.
Advertisement:Jalen Brunson kept the Knicks alive in the first half and deep into the third quarter with his offensive brilliance. While he’s as grifty as a player can get, drawing fouls with a wide array of pump fakes and leaning jumpers, he’s also an incredibly talented scorer and pick-and-roll operator.
Towns, the Knicks’ new offseason acquisition, is the prototypical modern offensive big man – equally a threat to hit threes, put the ball on the floor and post up effectively.
But the Celtics’ secret sauce has a lot of flavors, and a big part of it is that all of their talented offensive players can also defend really well. Together, Brunson and Towns give the Celtics high-value targets on any given possession in the pick-and-roll, and the Celtics’ defenders hold up well enough against them to prevent their offense from making up the difference.
Brunson – whose evening was very well summarized by his stat line of 36 points on 10-for-18 shooting, 13 free throws and a -19 in the box score – kept the Knicks alive in the first half and the third quarter, but the Knicks simply didn’t have enough for Tatum’s onslaught.
If Tatum had the Knicks waving their arms at the edge of the cliff, Pritchard spin-kicked them over it.
Advertisement:Pritchard scored 15 of his 25 points in the fourth quarter, burying three of his six triples in the final frame. As he put the Knicks away, Tatum roared from the bench – evidently more than content to sit tight on 40 points and watch Pritchard handle the rest.
Pritchard finished 9-for-13 from the floor with four rebounds, four assists and one “too small” celebration against Josh Hart.
Let chef Luke Kornet do your cooking this evening, and you won’t even have to wash the dishes.
Kornet finished a perfect 7-for-7 from the field with 14 points, 12 rebounds and three blocks. The Celtics started with Kornet and Al Horford on the floor in a double big lineup, and – not for the first time this season – Kornet gave them really excellent minutes in a starting role.
Nobody would accuse Neemias Queta of being a flawless basketball player – he finds himself in too many uncomfortable defensive positions, he swipes too often at defenders who already had him beat, and he can be prone to turnovers.
But Queta is also just so long and athletic that he can often be a positive player despite the flaws. On Saturday, Queta (11 points, 4-for-7 shooting, eight rebounds) did a lot of little things to boost the Celtics. He set good screens, and he made the most of the ensuing rolls to the rim. He gobbled up rebounds. He made most of his free throws. He was a deterrent at the rim, and he held up relatively well even He even knocked down a tough jump hook in the paint in the fourth.
Advertisement:Queta hasn’t always had consistent minutes this year, but with Porzingis sidelined, he filled in nicely. That’s the power of a deep bench full of acceptable role players – they won’t be perfect, but they can give you what you need on a short-handed evening in February.
The Celtics have just two more games until the All-Star break. On Monday, they take on the Heat in Miami at 7:30 p.m. before returning home for a game against the newly improved Spurs with Victor Wembanyama and De’Aaron Fox on Wednesday before the NBA takes a week off.
We will have more takeaways later this evening.
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