Thursday’s matchup between the Boston Celtics and Dallas Mavericks offers more than an opportunity for the league’s top team to bounce back from a historically bad performance against the Oklahoma City Thunder; the game offers a big stage for Jayson Tatum to make his case for MVP.
A January showdown between Tatum and MVP rival Luka Doncic is exactly the kind of game sportswriters and broadcasters can point to in defending which young dynamic player they’re writing in on their ballots.
“It’s huge. A lot of people who vote look at head-to-head matchups,” NBCSports Boston color commentator Brian Scalabrine told WEEI’s Arcand & Mego Wednesday. “I think voters would look at that, and Tatum’s definitely in that conversation. But with the Celtics coming back down to Earth a little bit, that conversation is six or seven deep now.”
“There’s a lot of candidates and there are a lot of teams playing well right now,” he added.
A recent look at his campaign shows a cannonball-worthy splash on Christmas Day: he posted 41 points, 7 rebounds, and 5 assists in against what looked like a threatening Milwaukee Bucks team. He followed that performance up with another stellar performance against the cream of the crop in the West, tallying 38 points and 8 rebounds against the Phoenix Suns.
But, as noted by Scalabrine, the Celtics have floundered around impressive offensive performances from their MVP hopeful and Jaylen Brown on a dismal road trip during which Boston let two teams hang more than 120 points on them, back-to-back. Oklahoma City’s 150-burger was just the third time in franchise history the Celtics have allowed 150 points or more on defense.
As stellar as Tatum’s highs have looked, it’s difficult to hold them against Doncic’s recent blazing exploits. He made box score history with his 60-21-10 performance over the Knicks only four days after putting up 50 points and 10 assists against the Rockets.
Putting these two opposite one another during the winter doldrums of the NBA is a tailormade exposition of their respective cases for the league’s most prestigious award. Tatum has the advantage against Doncic in head-to-head matchups this season so far after the Celtics bested the Mavs in November, but two victories would make an undeniable statement.
So far, in head-to-head matchups with other MVP candidates, Tatum has a nice trend going this season. He has helped lead the Celtics to victories over Joel Embiid, Ja Morant, Nikola Jokic, Kevin Durant, and Giannis Antetokounmpo.
How much does the MVP mean to Tatum? He’s mostly played it cool when it comes to how much those three little letters mean to him: time and time again his focus is on redeeming last season’s NBA Finals loss to the Golden State Warriors.
But let’s not pretend the award isn’t an achievement he covets.
“As a kid, was one of my dreams winning MVP? Sure,” Tatum told reporters earlier this season. “If it happened, it would be a dream come true. But it wasn’t, like, ‘Come back, win MVP.’ It’s like, ‘Come back, get to the championship.”