The Celtics are down, but not out.
In fact Boston is every much in, in the NBA's newfound playoff play-in tournament that is.
The water of a stunningly disappointing 2020-21 regular season has passed under the basketball bridge for an appropriately 36-36 very much mediocre team.
But all is not lost. The ship didn't sink just yet. There is still the tiniest of Green Teamer hope to salvage things.
That begins tonight at TD Garden (9 p.m., TNT) as the Brad Stevens' squad – optimistically labeled the top seed in the new play-in tournament in the Eastern Conference where the Celtics went to the finals of the bubbled postseason last fall against the Heat – takes on the Washington Wizards.
Win and a real, old-school playoff spot is secured to extend the hope/suffering, depending on your viewpoint.
Lose and a win-or-go-home play-in opportunity is all that remains against the dregs of the conference sub-.500 "contenders."
With the final story of the season on the line, the Celtics hopes rest on really only one man's shoulders.
Despite all the season-long, on-going blame game discussions that man is not president of basketball operations Danny Ainge.
It's also not the soft-spoken sideline "Masshole" Stevens.
Nope, only one man is capable and actually should be expected to lift Boston past the Wizards and down a road toward redemption.
Jayson Tatum.
Ready or not, it's indeed time for Tatum to shine. Time to take his game, and more importantly his team, to another level.
He is, after all, the supposed foundation of the Celtics present and future.
He, not Jaylen Brown who's lost for the season to wrist surgery, is the supposed straw that stirs the drink.
He, not highest-paid-player Kemba Walker, is the All-Star offensive leader.
While Tatum went on a late-season scoring spree that some speculated was in pursuit of All-NBA status that would earn him more than $30 million over the course of his contract extension, this isn't about money anymore. Although this is indeed why he makes the big bucks.
Piling up 60 points is no longer really the point.
Nope, this is about legacy.
It's now about winning and losing. Advancing and overcoming.
If Tatum really is the stud that he's been anointed, if he really is a top-10 NBA player then now is the time for him to prove it. Now is the time to put the wounded, disappointing, underachieving Celtics on his youthful shoulders. Now is the time to begin to build his legacy in the most storied franchise in basketball history.
A year ago Jimmy Butler set the tone and willed Miami on a run to the NBA Finals. While maybe that's a rather bold goal for Boston at this point, why can't Tatum inject similar juice into a team that's really been juiceless all season?
Just 23 years old, Tatum has plenty of postseason history under his elastic waistband. He has plenty of tools in his basketball toolbox.
It would be easy for everyone involved with the Celtics to pack it in. Say, "It's not our year" and move on to the offseason. Get 'em next year!
But stars, true stars, true leaders don't let that happen.
They pick themselves and their teams up by their sneakerstraps and fight the good fight.
They find a way.
Is Tatum up to that task at this point in his development?
We're about to find out.
