Jayson Tatum and the Boston Celtics just can't kick their penchant for stagnant late-game offense. And against Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray and the defending-champion Denver Nuggets on Friday night, that longtime weakness led to Boston's first home loss of the season.
The Celtics fell to the Nuggets 102-100 at TD Garden in a potential NBA Finals preview, a highly anticipated matchup that more than lived up to the hype. Jokic and Murray combined for 69 points on 43 shots in a ridiculously efficient tandem performance, also combining for 14 assists. Tatum, Derrick White and Kristaps Porzingis each scored more than 21 points in the Celtics' more balanced offensive attack, an approach that had them leading for most of Friday battle.
Boston crumbled in crunch-time, though, scoring just two points across the final four minutes and 51 seconds of regulation to allow Denver to steal the first opposing victory at TD Garden this season. Tatum went 1-of-5 over that stretch, clanking a pair of jumpers—including a would-be game-tying fadeaway at the buzzer—and missing twice at the rim, a continuation of he and his team's longstanding struggles to produce efficient offense when it matters most.
After the game, Celtics fans and NBA followers lamented Tatum's ongoing lack of success in the clutch.
Jayson Tatum's crunch-time struggles persist
The addition of a floor-spacing, mismatch-creating center like Kristaps Porzingis this season was supposed to help Boston overcome its tendency for late-game offensive labors. That's largely been the case, despite Friday's results saying otherwise. The Celtics boast a 128.2 offensive rating in crunch-time, per NBA.com/stats, the fourth-best mark in basketball. Joe Mazzulla can certainly live with that, just as he can his team's 13-7 record in clutch games.
Tatum hasn't done much as a scorer to contribute to that impressive team-wide efficiency, though. He's shooting just 33.3% in the last five minutes of close games, worst in the league among players who have taken at least 36 shots during those high-pressure moments.
No one will be surprised if Boston wins its first championship since 2008 come season's end. Mazzulla's team is even talented enough to hoist the Larry O'Brien Trophy in June even if Tatum can't shed his well-earned reputation in the clutch. But Jokic and Murray will always make the right play when the game hangs in the balance, a looming trump card that helped Denver leave TD Garden with a win on Friday and could loom extremely large should the Celtics and Nuggets meet again with the title on the line.
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