Jayson Tatum came through again for the Boston Celtics on Saturday night, hitting a game-winning 3-pointer in overtime.
Former Duke basketball star [autotag]Jayson Tatum[/autotag] delivered for the Boston Celtics again on Saturday night, hitting a game-winning 3-pointer in overtime for a 126-123 victory over the Toronto Raptors.
Tatum, fresh off his first NBA championship with the Celtics last season, seemed to be waiting for teammate Jaylen Brown on a pick-and-roll play, but Brown fell to the floor after making contact with a defender. The former Blue Devil improvised, creating a small amount of space with a few dribbles before launching a shot from close to the midcourt logo.
It found its mark, and the home crowd at TD Garden erupted.
Tatum finished the game with 24 points, 11 rebounds, and nine assists. Toronto forward RJ Barrett, another former Duke Blue Devil, notched a triple-double for the Raptors with 25 points. 15 assists, and 10 rebounds.
The third overall pick from the 2017 NBA draft could be in line for a fourth straight All-NBA First Team nomination. Through 14 games, Tatum is averaging 29.7 points, 7.9 rebounds, 5.9 assists, and 1.4 steals per game.
Boston Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla might love the movie The Town, but he doesn’t seem all that moved by that being the inspiration for a Jeopardy! prompt.
“I could care less,” Mazzulla told reporters about the Jeopardy! moment before leaving the press table.
“What is a firm response?” would be the winning answer for any Jeopardy! contestant if they saw the Mazzulla clip.
To be fair to Mazzulla, his team dropped a tough one to the Atlanta Hawks on Tuesday, so he might not have been in the mood to talk about it. At the least, we probably know what movie he’ll watch to cheer himself up!
Joe Mazzulla on becoming a part of a jeopardy question:
Boston Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla was asked to give an update about 2024 NBA Finals MVP winner Jaylen Brown.
Effective communication is important between a coach and his star player, but apparently, it does not always come naturally for Mazzulla and Brown. Boston’s head coach wasn’t able to provide much information about the wing because, according to Mazzulla, they both mumble.
Brown has missed his last three games for the Celtics due to a hip injury, but Mazzulla didn’t actually add additional insights for reporters during his press conference.
Not the best week for the former Notre Dame players.
After winning their first game, [autotag]Pat Connaughton[/autotag] and the Milwaukee Bucks have lost every game since. Connaughton tried to play his part with five points and two rebounds in an Oct. 30 loss to the defending champion Boston Celtics. But he followed that by shooting 1 of 7 from the field in a three-point, three-rebound, two-assist effort against the Memphis Grizzlies on Halloween. He wound up averaging 2.7 points, 2.3 rebounds and 1.3 assists a game over the course of the week.
[autotag]Blake Wesley[/autotag] did not fare much better over the past week with the San Antonio Spurs. He started out all right with five points and two rebounds in just under 13 minutes while losing Oct. 30 to the Oklahoma City Thunder. But he played only half that number of minutes over the next two games combined and didn’t register a single meaningful statistic. The result was a scoring average of 2.8 and a rebounding average of 0.8 over the three games.
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NBA teams are shooting more threes than ever before.
Welcome to Layup Lines, For the Win’s basketball newsletter. Subscribe here to get it delivered to your inbox every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Have feedback for the Layup Lines Crew? Leave your questions, comments and concerns through this brief reader survey. Now, here’s Prince J. Grimes.
What’s up hoops fans. The NBA season is a week old, and it feels so good to be back. To get a rematch of the Western Conference Finals on a random Tuesday night in October was just an absolute treat. We should never complain about getting to see some good bump.
However, one thing that stood out to me from the Dallas Mavericks’ win over the Minnesota Timberwolves was the combined 78 three-pointers the teams attempted in the game. It wasn’t necessarily an issue, as they made about 45% of them, but it did follow a trend that may be of concern depending how you like your hoops and who you root for.
Teams are shooting more threes this season than they ever have in NBA history.
On average, NBA teams are taking 37 3-pointers per game this season, which is two more than last season’s average — the largest year-to-year jump since 2019-20 if it holds. It’s an increase of 10 from just eight years ago and 15 more threes than teams were taking 10 years ago when the Splash Brothers won their first title together.
NBA teams are taking more 3s than ever this season
The increase makes sense. Threes are worth more than twos. Of course teams are taking more. Especially after seeing how it benefited the Warriors. The Celtics rode the league’s most attempts to a championship last year. The runner-up Mavericks attempted the second-most.
But smart basketball isn’t necessarily good basketball. And when it’s bad teams trying to cosplay as good teams, it’s not smart or good. Which gets to the heart of my issue.
There is more than one way to skin a cat. The Denver Nuggets won the 2023 championship attempting fewer threes than the league average. Same with the Los Angeles Lakers in 2020. Those teams leaned into their strengths. Similarly, the Celtics shoot a bunch of threes because they’re really good at it. Yet, it seems more and more teams are simply leaning into 3-point shooting because the math makes sense. Doing so without the personnel to execute it, though, is fruitless, and ultimately just makes for some unentertaining basketball.
Unless you have a lineup full of All-Stars and legitimately good shooters — which most teams don’t — you can’t be the Celtics. And unless you have players who consistently break defenses down and get them out of rotation, many of those threes are contested and coming off little to no ball movement. In the words of Paul George, that’s a bad shot.
It’s a bad watch, too. Even when the shots are dropping like they were for the Washington Wizards and Chicago Bulls Monday when each tied franchise records for threes made in a game. Minus the ball movement, it’s not the most fun to watch when the good teams are letting it fly either. The games become too homogenous, robbing us of all the intricacies and skill that comes from good post play, a mid-range game or simply attacking someone at the rim and daring them to stop you.
I’m not the first person to make this point. Fox Sports’ Nick Wright went so far as to argue the NBA should change its rules after the Boston Celtics tied their franchise record for threes made on Opening Night.
— What’s Wright? with Nick Wright (@WhatsWrightShow) October 24, 2024
Bomani Jones also said the league needs changes in response to a tweet about how many threes one of the NBA’s best athletes, Anthony Edwards, is averaging through four games (13.3!). “When the game incentivizes Anthony Edwards to play like Klay Thompson, something needs to change immediately,” Jones tweeted.
I’m not sure the best way for the NBA to move forward, or if it’s even something the league needs to address. As it is today, I’ll still watch it. It’s also possible younger fans that grew up watching Steph Curry and Klay Thompson like this style of play. I fully acknowledge I could be old man yelling at clouds here. But I can’t imagine it doesn’t become a problem in the near future if the 3-point shooting continues to increase.
It’s also possible the potential problem corrects itself.
After decades of 3s being much more efficient than 2s in the NBA, teams have finally adjusted their shot profiles such that the 3s and 2s both generate nearly exactly 1.09 points per shot pic.twitter.com/b7LRj5bRVi
According to Sportico data reporter Lev Akabas, teams have finally adjusted their shot profiles so that threes and twos generate nearly the same amount of points per attempt. Hopefully that means we’ll see a plateau in threes soon. If so, enjoying the NBA may be a matter of your tolerance for about 74 threes per game — 37 each team.
Personally, I’m less invested in the number and more concerned about how teams are creating those shots, and what they’re doing when the three isn’t open. What I’m seeing from a lot of teams today isn’t my ideal brand of basketball.
Chet Holmgren vs. Victor Wembanyama
Daniel Dunn-USA TODAY Sports
Speaking of players taking too many three per game, 7-foot-3 phenom Victor Wembanyama is taking about six per game this season despite shooting just 22% on them. But if there’s one thing that might get Wembanyama to put the ball on the floor and attack the rim, it might be tonight’s game between his San Antonio Spurs and the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Or more specifically, his matchup with Chet Holmgren.
Wembanyama and Holmgren have somewhat of a rivalry brewing, Mike Sykes wrote, and it’s very competitive.
“COMPETITIVE. In all caps. The games are fun to watch. They both do things we’ve never seen anyone like them do on an NBA court. …
Chet and the Thunder walked away with two wins in their three matchups. But Wembanyama would usually walk away with a highlight or two that made you go, “Wow. Can’t wait to watch more of this for the next 10 years.”
So, look. Maybe this isn’t a rivalry now. But the more these guys see each other, the closer this matchup becomes the real deal.”
Although receiving a statue outside of the arena where an athlete created their legacy is one of the highest honors in sports, it isn’t always easy to get it right. Sadly, the statue built for Wade did not get a warm reception when it was unveiled.
His own reaction was fairly awkward and folks on the internet immediately turned it into the punchline of a joke, which is never a good sign.
Duke basketball alum Jayson Tatum began the Boston Celtics title defense with a 37-point double-double on Tuesday night.
Duke basketball alum [autotag]Jayson Tatum[/autotag] opened the 2024-25 season on Tuesday night by picking up right where he left off.
Tatum scored 37 points and added 10 assists against the New York Knicks in the season opener, helping the Boston Celtics to a 132-109 victory.
The best former Blue Devil in the league made 14 of his 18 attempts from the floor, including eight of his 11 3-point attempts, and pulled down four rebounds. The Celtics, as a team, tied an NBA record with 29 3-pointers for the game.
Tatum won his first NBA championship with the Celtics at the end of last season, putting a stamp on one of the best seasons in league history. Boston finished with a 64-18 record, seven more wins than any other team and 14 more than any other Eastern Conference franchise. The Celtics only lost three games between their four playoff series, and Tatum led the team in points, assists, and rebounds over the title run.
Tatum, the third overall pick in the 2017 NBA draft, later won his second consecutive Olympic gold medal with Team USA in Paris, making him the first Blue Devil with two of those on his mantle.
Xavier Tillman Sr. had a huge smile on his face as he got his championship ring
It’s been official for a while, but now he has the ring to prove it.
Michigan State basketball legend Xavier Tillman Sr. is an NBA champion, an honor he earned with the Boston Celtics when they dismantled the Dallas Mavericks in the NBA Finals in June. On Tuesday night, he received his ring on opening night as Boston celebrated the title and raised a championship banner to the rafters.
You can watch him get the ring below with a huge, well-deserved smile on his face:
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The NBA’s reigning champs, the Boston Celtics, raised another banner into the crowded rafters of TD Garden on Tuesday night and also received their championship rings from winning last season’s Finals.
And man, these rings are big, shiny and pretty.
It remains to be seen if Danny Aingeor Grant Williams will get one, but the players who do get to slip one on will have a heavy diamond-laden rock hanging from their hand.
Each ring features a total of 15 carats of white diamonds, representing the 15 teams in the NBA’s Eastern Conference. In the inner and outer bezels of the ring are a combined 32 emerald cut diamonds – 16 for the number of the Celtics’ playoff wins last season, and 18 for the number of championships the franchise has won.
The rings are also customized with each player’s name and number on the side, which is situated against a panel that is meant to look like TD Garden’s parquet floors. The ring also has a removable top, and inside is each player’s jersey number and the final score of the Finals’ clinching game, a 106-88 win over the Dallas Mavericks.
There’s so much more on the rings too. Take a closer look here at the details:
The rings were created in collaboration with Jason of Beverly Hills.
Before the Celtics tipped off against the Knicks in the season-opener, Jayson Tatum let his son hold his ring on the court in a touching father-son moment.
The Celtics have a pretty easy schedule this season, and it’s not unthinkable that they could repeat and add another ring to the franchise’s collection.
As the Celtics open their title defense against the New York Knicks on Tuesday night, they will be without the spacing and shot-blocking big man’s services — he’s the only player currently listed on Boston’s injury report.
Why? Porzingis is still recovering from surgery for a torn retinaculum and dislocated posterior tibialis tendon suffered early in last year’s playoffs and exacerbated in Game 2 of the 2024 NBA Finals. While not season-ending, it remains a “rare” ailment that will likely force Porzingis to take his time getting back up to his speed.
According to Porzingis himself in an interview with ESPN, his recovery timeline will see him hopefully make a return to the Celtics’ lineup sometime in December. Notably, that would still be on the “early side” of an apparent 5-6 month recovery period for surgery for his respective injuries.
That’s all we know about Porzingis’ playing status for the time being. We’ll see how his 2024-2025 season with the Celtics develops in the months ahead.
