Boston Celtics star Jayson Tatum has had a tough time capturing the ball these days. Entering Wednesday night time, he was 30-of-93 (32.2 %) from 3-point land since play resumed after the All-Star break. That development continued within the Celtics’ 104-102 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves, as he went 0-of-8 from behind the arc.
When you may’t get something to go from the surface, you are taught to get to the basket for a higher-percentage look, and Tatum did so in emphatic vogue in the midst of the third quarter. The Celtics ran a designed play to get Tatum reducing towards the basket, and Marcus Smart discovered him with a easy bounce move by site visitors. All Tatum needed to do at that time was catch the ball and explode to the rim.
The end result was the most effective dunks of the season, as Tatum put Rudy Gobert on a poster. Take a glance:
The dunk alone would have made this a memorable second, however the drama did not cease there. The power of the collision despatched Tatum sprawling to the ground, the place he landed with a thud on his facet. As he tried to recuperate from the autumn, the referees went to the monitor to assessment the play, which they finally upgraded to a Flagrant 1 foul on Gobert for hitting Tatum within the face.
Thankfully for Tatum, who completed with 22 factors and 12 rebounds on 4-of-16 from the sphere, the autumn appeared worse than it truly was, and he was capable of stay within the recreation. An harm to their greatest participant would have been the very last thing the Celtics want proper now.
“Came down, fell proper on my hip,” Tatum stated. “It’s fairly sore, nothing loopy, however gotta monitor it, preserve icing, issues like that.”
Even with the win over the Wolves, they’re simply 6-5 for the reason that All-Star break. During that span they’ve blown quite a few double-digit leads, together with a 28-point collapse towards the Brooklyn Nets, misplaced to the lowly Houston Rockets and have dropped to 2.5 video games behind the Milwaukee Bucks for the No. 1 seed within the Eastern Conference.