If Kyle Kuzma is Batman, meet Robin played by Jayson Tatum.
The young core of Kyle Kuzma and Brandon Ingram are always attached to Jayson Tatum of the Boston Celtics. Not only in the style of play, but they all represent assets for their respective teams in the race for Anthony Davis in the offseason.
It is irritating at times listening to casual fans talk about these three players because they all have the potential to be great NBA players. Box scores aren’t everything, but this is what they get graded by and it is wrong.
It even happened in this game.
Jayson Tatum followed up Kuzma’s strong game with 30 points of his own. He shot 12-of-24 from the field and led everyone in the game with nine rebounds. Like Ingram, Tatum tends to stay with the mid-range game. That was not the case on this night because looked to fire from distance in this game. Tatum put up 14 shots from Curry-Land, hitting six.
He also knows how to get out on the break.
https://twitter.com/celtics/status/1096602671841128448
Turning defense into offense, Jayson Tatum steals the ball from Ben Simmons (who balled out in this game!) and throws the ball ahead to D’Aaron Fox, who gave the ball back to the guy who started it all for a slam dunk.
Check out how Lauri Markkanen was so faked out he jumped in the air before Fox made the pass.
Then there’s that mid-range game.
https://twitter.com/celtics/status/1096617483140620288
This is not fair folks. Tatum rocks Bogdan Bogdanovic, who was last year’s MVP, to sleep with a behind the back dribble. Then Tatum takes him to the elbow and hits him with the fadeaway to put the game away for Team USA.
Classic Tatum.