That's how I read it. In many cases, you want Tatum taking the last shot late. But not in every case; certainly wasn't the case against Denver, no matter what the generic analytics claim. The onus is on everyone on the court to put themselves in position to score if Tatum is unable to get a decent shot off, while the onus is on Tatum is to read the situation and pass the ball if needed.
Unfortunately, if someone put together the Tatum off-the-dribble and mid-range misses it would be longer than 25 minutesSomeone put together 25+ minutes of JT shooting off-the-dribble and mid-range jumpers from last season in case anyone is interested. I don't have that kind of time yet but I thought someone might.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ewk9aL8jWIo
Disagree. Washburn wrote (bold added): "It’s time for Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla to mix up the late-game offense and give players such as Jaylen Brown, Derrick White, and Porzingis a chance to win games with last-second shots. And such a strategy will also open up offense for Tatum as other players develop as threats."
added value of that approach is it introduces some doubt into opposing defenses as to what those game-critical plays might be.
Precisely. I don’t know why people want to see shots like Jaylen’s turnaround (when he was hit in the head) over 3 defenders with no separation. Once again, a writer doesn’t understand how difficult it is to get off a shot in the NBA when the defenses dig in and don’t want them to. It’s not simply Tatum not making his end of game shots….it’s that others are extremely unlikely to generate better looks or in many cases get a shot off at all.Disagree. Washburn wrote (bold added): "It’s time for Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla to mix up the late-game offense and give players such as Jaylen Brown, Derrick White, and Porzingis a chance to win games with last-second shots. And such a strategy will also open up offense for Tatum as other players develop as threats."
JB might get the call once in a while but with 10 seconds left and the game is on the line, the ball is going to JT. JMazz is not drawing up a play for DWhite in the playoffs. Everybody knows it and that's the way he wants it. Even KP understands this:
“We got the ball to JT and we live or die,” Porzingis said. “We trust him. [Friday] it didn’t go our way but I think we did the right thing and that’s all we can ask for.”
Two other things I have to mention. Washburn talks at the same time about the offense in the last five minutes versus game-on-the-line shots. Wholeheartedly agree that KP and Jrue were brought in to make the offense down the stretch easier and to my (not great) recollection, the Cs have been pretty good down the stretches of games. Better than last year (how many times have we said, "They would have lost that game last year.").
So down the stretch, KP and Jrue have made life easier. But when it comes to game on the line shots, JT is going to get the ball.
Also, it's great that Washburn posts stats without any context. We know - but most readers don't - that 33% on end-of-the-game shots is pretty good. And yes 1-7 sounds pretty bad but it's a small enough number that it probably bring JT down to average.
Like KP said. We're all going to have to ride and die on JT. Let's just hope that by the time they get to the playoffs, they will have figured out things sufficiently on both sides so that there are no close games.
Then what's to stop a team from putting 5 defenders on Tatum in such situations? Seems like other teams such as Denver, Miami, Golden State (previously) find ways to both (a) get their star the ball; and (b) get other players in position to score when the shot is not there.
DEN's star is better. GSW's star is probably better at either getting a look up or opening the court for others MIA's star may be better in these situations (gets to the foul line). So was LAL's in their title run.
None of those teams (other than the Warriors) had 4 All-Star level offensive players surrounding their superstar.
We can create all of these ficticious counters but that isn't a reality of what is going to occur. This isn't what Washburn was referring to as he seems to be promoting running stuff for other players bc they are really good and stuff. If the doubles come then absolutely he should be using clock management to find an open catch and shoot guy....I believe in this but it is still running through Tatum and if no double comes I want him creating that final shot as he's the best, by a large margin, on this team in doing so.
You're right, we don't want to see triple-teamed JB firing shots when there are wide-open teammates around him.
Yeah, I don't think Washburn really has any idea what you'd action run and why.
Agreed on final sentence for sure. The other Celtics, as good as they are, are not end of game shot creators....I don't know how else to say it but they aren't. Tatum, as KP says, is the one who needs to get these reps and improve on finding his teammates once a double comes. He's still so young even MJ didn't become good at this until into his early 30's. I mean we can debate it all day but unless there is a clear mismatch on the floor we are going to see the ball in Tatum's hands bringing the ball up or in the frontcourt 90%+ of the time.
Come on that post-Pierce team was an offensive juggernaut, they were much better than their 27th Off Rtg!
This was to make us all appreciate Pierce getting off his elbow jumper on virtually every end of quarter or end of game possession.Come on that post-Pierce team was an offensive juggernaut, they were much better than their 27th Off Rtg!
Rondo, Sullinger, Bradley, Bass, Crawford, Jeff Green
Not sure late-game decision-making has been a strength of any Celtic in recent years.
Ha. If Jaylen had just kicked to Jrue for Corner3 (JH 60% on those this season) instead of getting brushed in the head from Hield. That will go down as one of the oddest reversals.
Thanks for putting that together.
Yeah that’s still the definition. I wasn’t so much discussing the discourse here, just Washburn’s point. He brought up crunch time numbers multiple times, and purposely left out how balanced they’ve been in those situations. It’s just par the course for him.Thanks for putting that together.
Is “Crunch Time” still defined as less than five minutes remaining in the fourth quarter or overtime with neither team ahead by more than five points. Don't love that stat, since any game in single digits is in play over the last 5 minutes.
I thought we were discussing approaches in a tied game against an under-24-second clock (and to a smaller extent the end of Quarters).
This has all the makings of a POLL, since we have two days until Miami
I'm not a Gary Washburn fan either, have never listened to any of his Podcasts for more than 5 minutes. Seems miserable and has been critical of 3PA, which is only going in one direction.
This is where JMazz will earn his paycheck.
I don't have time right now to take in the whole show. Can you point out the segment on the C's? Thanks.
Thanks for posting this. First 15 minutes focus on the Celtics-Nuggets game specifically, and then the discussion shifts to the C's late-game strategy generally.
JJ & Legler do a good job analyzing what's happening with the Celtics at the end of games (actually Tim starts at the 16-minute mark)
he will never have an elite handle (compared to other primary creators) but him playing w/in himself and the coaching staff putting him in position to reduce turnovers moving forward could be huge in the playoffs.
When talking about Embiid in another thread, I realized something similar. I don't have any children, so that part doesn't apply to me but it's nice to have a superstar that cares about the team and seems to be a real leader.
Good for Tatum, but my first thought on seeing that list is where the hell is Anthony Edwards? Young up and coming star for a good team, super exciting to watch, and gonna be one of the 2-3 best American born players in the league over the next dozen or so years.
Booker being 7th was funniest to me, mostly because he wasn’t even one of the top 25 vote getters for the all star team.
Good man. I like the Memphis jerseys aesthetically but yeah, I think his image needs a hell of a lot more rehabilitation before I'd even consider buying his jersey
