“I urged him to go on vacation just now. During a teleconference call with the media on Tuesday morning, the president of basketball operations for the Boston Celtics grinned proudly and said, “Go get some rest.” “This man gave everything he had to us.”
“I just told him, ‘Go on vacation. Go get some rest,’” the Boston Celtics’ president of basketball operations said with a proud smile Tuesday morning during a teleconference call with the media. “’This guy gave us everything he had.”
As simple of a message as it was, Tatum needed to hear those words. Everyone needed to hear those words because, in the wake of an NBA Finals loss, it’s easy to get caught up in the raw disappointment and forget about the journey that led Celtics Nation to this point.
It was Tatum who spearheaded that journey for the Celtics. He put his heart and soul into this season in search of Banner 18 and, although he and the Celtics came up two wins short of their goal, there is no one who deserves some offseason R&R more than him.
Tatum has known nothing but basketball over the past year, as he went nearly 12 months without taking a break. He started Olympics training camp with Team USA on July 6, 2021, and basically didn’t put down the basketball until June 16, 2022, after Game 6 of the Finals.
Throughout that time, Tatum played in 112 games while logging 4,008 minutes, both of which were easily league-high marks.
“When you look at the minutes, when you look at the games played, I’ve said this many times, he’s a superstar that doesn’t want to sit,” said Stevens. “He wants to play; he wants to play all the time.”
For most of that time, Tatum played at a superstar level. He earned an Olympic gold medal, his third All-Star appearance, his first All-NBA First Team nod, and the Larry Bird Eastern Conference Finals MVP trophy.
Unfortunately, his level of play dipped below his typical standards during the Finals, as he averaged 21.5 points per game while shooting 36.7 percent from the field. But in analyzing those numbers, what must be taken into account is the load that he carried up to that point along with the quality of defense he had to face every game against the Warriors.
“In the Finals, obviously, I think he would be the first to say that he would like to have some of those moments back,” said Stevens. “But I thought there were other contributing factors to how he played but – we had several guys that really struggled in the Finals. I thought [Golden State’s] defense was excellent. I thought our offense got stagnant and the challenge of the long year adds up. But that’s part of the learning experience about getting to the point where you have a great idea about what it takes to
get all the way through.”
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