Listen live to WEEI
Jayson Tatum made history on Sunday, scoring 51 points in the Celtics’ 112-88 win over the 76ers to set a new NBA record for points scored in a Game 7.
It was a masterful performance, as Tatum shot 17-of-28 from the field – 6-of-10 from three and 11-of-18 from two – while getting to the free-throw line 14 times and hitting 11 of those. Tatum also had 13 rebounds, five assists, two steals and a game-best plus-33 rating, all while committing zero turnovers and just one foul.
Needless to say, an awful lot of people were awfully impressed. There was, of course, the crowd at TD Garden, which gave Tatum a standing ovation when the jumbotron flashed the news that Tatum had made history, and then again when Tatum checked out of the blowout game with 3:10 to go.
There were also Tatum’s teammates. Al Horford called the performance “special.” Marcus Smart said witnessing it was like watching a great movie.
Jaylen Brown even worked in a plug for Tatum’s Jordan brand shoes while praising his co-star.
“JT just got it going. Get out of that man’s way,” Brown said. “He just got it rolling, and there was nothing they could do to stop him. They started trying to double-team him, and it just gave open looks to other guys. When JT’s playing like that, we’re gonna be extremely hard to beat. Way to step up. Great performance by Jayson. I think everybody should go buy some of them new JTs he just dropped, for sure. Nah, he did his thing tonight.”
Some of the highest praise may have come from Philadelphia coach Doc Rivers. The former Boston coach has coached the fourth-most playoff games in NBA history, and he said he has only seen one other playoff performance that rivals what Tatum did Sunday.
“I’ve seen one. And it was in this building, unfortunately, and it was LeBron,” Rivers said.
Rivers is referring to Game 6 of the 2012 Eastern Conference Finals, when LeBron James scored 45 points on 19-of-26 shooting and pulled down 15 rebounds to lead the Heat to a 98-79 win over the Celtics and send the series back to Miami for a Game 7. The Heat would go on to win Game 7 as well.
“That’s the only time I’ve seen a performance like that live,” Rivers said. “I’m glad that I haven’t seen many. But yeah, I’ve seen one. Tatum was not only unbelievable, but he played just hard defensively. And he didn’t take a lot of bad shots. I thought he got in rhythm and he played great overall tonight.”
Speaking of that era of the Celtics, Paul Pierce was blown away by Tatum’s performance as well. Of course, The Truth knows a thing or two about great Game 7s, with his 41-point performance against Cleveland in the second round in 2008 coming to mind – a game in which LeBron scored 45 in a losing effort for the Cavaliers.
“Damn @jaytatum0 woke up today and chose violence 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾wow,” Pierce tweeted.
Here’s some more reaction from around the NBA and sports world:
Related
