'Elimination Game Tatum' Is Real For Jayson and the Celtics

Jayson Tatum's elimination-game resume is longer (and probably better) than you think.

He just turned 25 in March, and he's already played in 13 elimination games in his career. He's 8-5 overall and 3-0 this postseason.

And beyond that, Tatum undoubtedly hits another level individually when faced with these stakes.

On Tuesday, with his Boston Celtics down 3-0 to the Miami Heat, we saw that level again.

Tatum went off for 33 points on 14-of-22 shooting. He grabbed 11 rebounds, handed out seven assists, blocked two shots and got a steal for good measure.

Twenty-five of those points came after halftime, when his team was down six.

Throughout the third and fourth quarters, his shotmaking, defense and creation helped Boston cruise to what turned out to be about as comfortable a win as any team down 3-0 could have.

And this is far from the first time we've seen Tatum stave off the end of a campaign for his Celtics. He just did it twice in the last round against the Philadelphia 76ers.

Down 3-2 against James Harden and reigning MVP Joel Embiid, Tatum looked cooked through three and a half quarters of Game 6. He was 1-of-14 from the field to that point. Philadelphia had the lead with just under five minutes to play, and then Tatum erupted with four clutch threes on the road.

The next game, he didn't take as long to get going. Tatum was white hot from the opening tip and finished with 51 points (an NBA record for a Game 7). He shot 17-of-28 from the field and 6-of-10 from three, and the Celtics cruised into the Eastern Conference Finals.

These three games all coming in a single postseason run is pretty remarkable, but that's far from the end of the resume. He had 46 on May 13, 2022 against Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks. He topped 30 in elimination games against the Heat in 2020 and Brooklyn Nets in 2021.

All told, his numbers from 13 career elimination games are comfortably better than his regular-season marks.

• Elimination Game Tatum: 27.4 points, 8.2 rebounds, 5.6 assists, 1.1 blocks and 1.0 steals per game, 44.7 field-goal percentage, 42.2 three-point percentage, 84.2 free-throw percentage
• Regular Season Tatum: 22.5 points, 7.0 rebounds, 3.3 assists, 0.7 blocks and 1.1 steals per game, 45.8 field-goal percentage, 37.5 three-point percentage, 84.7 free-throw percentage

The numbers are even better in the last 10 elimination games, and they're downright silly for the three in 2023. In those contests, he's at 34.3 points, 11.0 rebounds, 6.0 assists, 1.7 steals and 1.3 blocks.

"Tatum has his faults, but you can't accuse him of giving up with his back against the wall and looking ahead to vacation instead," SiriusXM NBA Radio's Justin Termine wrote after the game. "Among the best in the sport at showing up when facing elimination."

Issac Baldizon/NBAE via Getty Images

Of course, this is just one game. And Tatum's inconsistency earlier in the series is part of why Boston has to extend this one-game winning streak to four to advance.

In the three games Boston lost this series, he was 5-of-20 from three. He had 12 turnovers and 11 assists. His game was undoubtedly frustrated by Jimmy Butler and a stingy Heat defense that upended both the Bucks and New York Knicks.

Missing jump shots and giving the ball away can often be attributed to a lack of focus (which has felt like a team-wide malady for the Celtics for much of this campaign), but that's rarely been a problem in win-or-go-home situations for Tatum.

And now, he's put himself in that situation for every game the rest of this series.

FiveThirtyEight's projection system only gives the Celtics a 25 percent chance to win the series, but the next game is back in Boston. They've already opened as eight-point favorites for that one.

"We want to come back to Miami," Jaylen Brown said during his presser after the game. "If that happens, I feel like we'll feel good about ourselves. The next one should be fun."

If the Heat are coming home next time up 3-2 instead of 3-0, they might start to feel a little pressure. And their lack of depth (at least on paper) compared to Boston's could become more apparent the deeper we get into a series.

This is looking too far ahead, but you can expect a similar betting line if this somehow winds up in Boston for a Game 7.

The chances of the series getting to that point are slim. Butler has been indomitable throughout the postseason. And we can probably expect a wave of adjustments from Miami coach Erik Spoelstra ahead of Game 5.

But the Celtics have one of the best and perhaps most under-appreciated weapons in the NBA. And it seemingly only appears for a very specific circumstance.

Elimination Game Tatum is real. And Boston has set him up to potentially play four games in a row.