With the Celtics holding a 3-2 series advantage and hosting tonight’s Game 6 Eastern Conference Finals matchup with the Heat a TD Garden, its seems pretty much everyone on the planet not named Jimmy Butler probably believes Boston is a slam-dunk to secure a long-elusive spot in the NBA Finals.
Heck, even Warriors star Draymond Green is preparing to play the Celtics, at least based on what he emphatically told TNT just minutes after dispatching Dallas to return to the Finals.
“You’re asking me who I want to play, I’m going to tell you who I think we’re going to play. We’re going to play Boston. That’s who we’re going to play,” Green told Shaquille O’Neal and the TNT postgame crew with knowing confidence.
From coast to coast the feeling is the same. Whether it’s fans or media, the expected outcome is consistent.
Sure the Heat are an experienced, veteran team that’s been here and done that.
But they are also a wounded squad, one that’s shooting poorly and fading as this back-and-forth battle of Atlantic Coast heavyweights has played out.
Miami’s best players are literally and figuratively limping toward the finish line, one that’s indeed expected to come on Friday night in Boston.
Draymond knows. You know it. I know it.
Thankfully, at least publicly, the Celtics aren’t taking anything for granted after seizing control of the series in Miami.
“Don’t look past them,” Jayson Tatum said, at least attempting to take a Belichickian, Patriots-like approach to ignoring the outside noise that comes in the form of expectant support. “Don’t believe you guys saying on TV saying that we’re going to the championship, because this is far from over.
“Go into Friday like we’re down 3-2. This is a great team, well-coached. They’re not gonna give up. It’s not gonna be easy. I’m looking forward to it. It’s gonna be a challenge, but it’s gonna be fun.”
He should be looking forward to it. It should be fun. Fresh off earning the All-NBA status that many have projected for him for years, Tatum is now one simple step away from the NBA Finals. His legend is growing and his legacy is actually beginning to take shape the way so many predicted it would.
He’s also right. Just because the Celtics are already the presumptive Eastern Conference Champions, doesn’t make it so.
The Celtics story tonight is what Tatum’s story has been for years. Opponents and coaches lauding him as a great player. A top-5 talent in the NBA. A superstar. A future MVP. But those were all just words, predictions and assumptions.
Tatum actually had to prove those words true. He’s taken steps toward doing that this season by helping transform Ime Udoka’s Celtics from a forgotten bottom-feeder in the East playing unwatchable basketball in December to the team that’s expected to represent the conference in the Finals with a chance to pursue another Boston banner. It’s a team that picked its own potentially daunting playoff path. It swept through K.D, Kyrie and the Nets. Slugged it out with the Greek Freak and was left standing.
Tatum is and has always been at the center of it all. Even against the Heat, when Boston has struggled it’s been in large part due to Tatum’s struggles.
He’s the unquestioned leader and central force on the Celtics. No disrespect to key teammates like Jaylen Brown, Marcus Smart, Al Horford or Robert Williams, but Boston is clearly Tatum’s team. It’s been promoted that way for years and now is playing out that way.
Which is why tonight he has to be the All-NBA Tatum. The closer. The guy who can take over a game and will his team to victory, as he did in Game 6 of the last series in Milwaukee.
There can no shooting slumps. No slow starts. No turnovers coming in bunches to give Butler and Co. life. No return to Miami for a Game 7.
As Tatum goes, so go the Celtics.
And we all expect Boston to go to the NBA Finals at this point. To finalize that Finals trip to face the Warriors tonight. To make it fact more than a widely held prediction.
Tatum sounds like a man who knows what he and his team need to do. He’s saying all the right things.
Now all he needs to do is live the slogan his Jordan Brand boss helped make so famous.
Just do it.