The Boston Celtics, injury-riddled and inconsistent, limped into the league's new play-in tournament round as the Eastern Conference's seventh seed, easily written off as a legitimate playoff contender.
But thanks to All-Star forward Jayson Tatum, the team still has a puncher's chance to erase that narrative.
Behind a stellar offensive performance from Tatum, who scored a team-high 50 points on 14-of-32 shooting, the Celtics rallied to defeat the Washington Wizards, 118-100, on Tuesday night at TD Garden. With the win, Boston officially claimed the East's seventh seed, and they'll face the two-seeded Brooklyn Nets in the first round of the playoffs.
Tatum doesn't deserve all the credit for the Celtics' sudden flipping of the switch. The team also played exceptional defense, limiting Washington to just three made threes, and Celtics radio play-by-play voice Sean Grande was overly impressed by their effort and execution.
"The play-in game against the Wizards bore no resemblance to the 72-game facsimile of an NBA season that the Celtics just trudged their way through," Grande told After Hours with Amy Lawrence on Wednesday. "They defended, they defended the three-point line. They were aggressive and didn't look for three-point shots. Jayson Tatum, even Kemba [Walker], they were driving to the basket. Just things that we hadn't seen from the Celtics this year... If ever a year everything resets 0-0 at the end of a regular season, this was the year to get through the mess and try to start over...
"[Celtics head coach Brad Stevens] has been very careful to not throw his players under the bus in a year that the effort has not been at its maximum level. And that's where it shows the most -- fighting through screens on the defensive end, putting in that extra effort. And that's why this year was so difficult for Celtics fans to try and wade their way through the very popular blame game..."
According to FiveThirtyEight's most recent projections, the Celtics have been given a 16-percent chance to reach the East's semifinals, a 4-percent to reach the conference finals, and less than a 1-percent chance to reach the NBA Finals.
The entire Celtics conversation between Grande and Lawrence can be accessed in the audio player above.
You can follow After Hours With Amy Lawrence on Twitter @ALawRadio and @AfterHoursCBS, and Tom Hanslin @TomHanslin.