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It’s that time of year again: awards season on Celtics.com! As we do every offseason, we’re handing out six virtual trophies as we move through this year’s Celtics.com award series. There’s no acceptance speech, and the voting committee is made up of just two of your favorite beat makers, but we’ve got some top Celtics performances to describe. So let’s go…
There is no debate on this price. Clear cut. No question. Burn it in stone.
Jayson Tatum was Boston’s MVP in 2020-21 and for the second consecutive season.
Tatum wasn’t just good last season. He wasn’t even just great. He was part of the elite, while also winning his second straight All-Star appearance, his first All-Star start and a daring All-NBA snub.
The prized Boston wing has appeared in 64 of the team’s 72 games, which placed second behind Payton Pritchard, despite Tatum being diagnosed with COVID-19 in January and experiencing lingering aftereffects on the rest of the season. While starting all of those games and playing on the side effects, Tatum has managed to lead the team in a long list of categories, including field goals (605), 3 points (187), free throws. (295), total rebounds (472), assists (276) and total steals (75).
With all of those shots taken, Tatum has a Celtic’s second-highest scoring average in the past 15 seasons averaging 26.4 points per game. That number also ranked 11th in the league overall and fifth among forwards.
There were a few players who did it better than him when it came to scoring averages, but none did it better than him when it came to scoring 50-point games. Tatum, at 23, has racked up four this season – two in the regular season and two in the playoffs – to lead the entire NBA in that category. He also added three more games of at least 40 points and 17 more games of at least 30 points during the season.
Among all of those electric scoring performances, there is one that stands out above the rest, and that is his April 30 performance against the San Antonio Spurs. This performance was one for the ages – and we don’t take that statement lightly.
Tatum burned Spurs with 60 points not only to set a new career scoring record but also to tie Larry Bird for the highest one-game score in Celtics franchise history. Think about all the incredible performances that have taken place in Celtics history. None surpassed Tatum’s effort in the scoring column that night at the end of April.
What made this 60-point gem even more special was the fact that it spurred a historic Celtics comeback. It was The Miracle on Causeway, triggered by The Jayson Tatum Game.
Boston trailed up to 32 points in the first half and 29 points at the half, but Tatum and the C’s broke in in the second half to claim a stunning victory by one count. 143-140 in overtime. The win at the time marked the second-biggest deficit to be overcome in NBA history, and the teams had lost 1,014 straight games after trailing 32 points or more before Tatum and the Celtics ended the game. this sequence.
After the game Tatum couldn’t fathom the fact that he and Bird were one at the top of one of Boston’s all-time record lists.
“It’s… it’s hard to – I don’t know,” he said after the game. “Obviously anytime you’re mentioned with an all-time Top 10 player in any statistic, that’s obviously a good thing. This is something I would never have imagined at this age.
The emphasis is on “at this age”. Remember, Tatum is only 23 years old, but he’s already making NBA history in the scoring column. That’s not all he did, however. His season went way beyond scoring as he put together a brief for an All-NBA nod that was overlooked by far too many members of the media.
A year after being drafted into the All-NBA third team, Tatum set new career highs scoring (26.4 PPG), rebounds (7.4 RPG) in assists (4.3 APG), free throw attempts per game (5.3), in aid versus turnover (1.61), percentage of actual shots (57.6%) and player efficiency rate (21.32) . His tendency to reach the free throw line is what propelled him to the threshold of the league’s elite scoring, having made at least 10 free throws in eight of his 64 appearances. It was after that he did it just seven times in total in his first three seasons. And yet somehow he hasn’t been selected for an All-NBA team this season.
It was a mistake, and one that may not happen again in the future. Tatum is now the consecutive MVP of Boston who is a clear superstar in the league, and he will only get better from here.
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