Jayson Tatum has been challenged to be a better playmaker.
Some of that has been constructive, some of it nearly destructive, but the point has remained the same all season so far. Tatum, and his running mate Jaylen Brown as well, have to be better creators.
With Brown out, it has been especially important for Tatum to deliver on his passes. But it’s one thing to pass, and it’s another thing to create. What we saw against the Toronto Raptors was more creation than we’ve seen all season from Tatum.
The key to Tatum’s creation against the Raptors was his attack. Five of Tatum’s seven assists against Toronto came from paint touches Tatum created, the most such assists Tatum has had all season. His previous high was four paint touches that led to assists, which came against the Charlotte Hornets.
Not coincidentally, those two games were Tatum’s highest assist totals (he had eight against the Hornets).
His first three assists of the night were almost identical: Drive from the left side, get into the middle of the paint, kick it into the right corner for a 3-pointer.
Toronto over-helps a lot on defense, and Tatum took advantage of that to really suck in the defense and get the ball out to the corner. Each time, just like almost every paint touch ever, the entire defense was focused on Tatum in the lane, which opened up the pass.
Side note: Marcus Smart’s hammer screen on the first Romeo Langford 3 was beautiful. And on the second one, the lob threat to Robert Williams gave Langford all the time in the world to shoot.
The manipulation of defenses has been an area of improvement for Tatum for a while. He has been very willing to make the right play when he gets double-teamed, but there’s a passiveness to getting the screen, getting blitzed, and giving up the ball.
Frankly, that’s what teams want him to do. They’d rather take their chances with the Celtics playing 4-on-3 than to have Tatum play them 5-on-5.
But when Tatum is attacking and drawing multiple defenders, he’s actually taking teams away from their defensive strategy. When he drives into the paint, it means he’s beating at least one person off the dribble, and requiring at least one other person to come over and help.
Watch how much attention he gets on this beauty of a dime to Smart.
Again, Robert Williams demands attention down low. Langford hit a couple of 3-pointers so he demands some attention. Grant Williams and Marcus Smart are the guys to help off of, which Toronto does to try to build a wall against Tatum. That creates this massive cutting lane for Smart.
There is so much attention there that even when Smart is already under the basket, that huge lane is still there.
And there’s this assist to Robert Williams that helped open the game back up in the fourth quarter.
Again, a paint touch that Tatum created drew a lot of attention, giving Williams the chance to come over from the left dunker spot to get an easy basket.
Look at how much attention Tatum gets on this.
This is how those defenders ended up looking
Three teammates practically hugging in the paint is now how teams want their defenses to look.
“He was moving the ball,” Ime Udoka said after the game. “He didn't have the best shooting night but he knows how they are going to guard him. He knows the attention he draws every night and our big point of emphasis was them over-helping and shifting and gambling on him ...
“He was really getting into the paint and kicking out for wide-open shots, whether they made or missed them. He's doing what he asked, he knows that will alleviate the pressure on him later in the game.”
Tatum’s true next step as a creator is making what he did against the Raptors the rule, rather than the exception. Aside from the Raptors and Hornets games, he only had one other where multiple assists came from paint touches. He had five straight games where none of his assists originated from a paint touch, and three where there was only one.
I will say, this isn’t the perfect illustration of Tatum being effective. One of those games with a one-paint-touch assist was the Dallas game, and Tatum was in pretty good control of that game as well. If we dial back from just the paint touches, there is one more added element that makes the paint touches work.
“It’s more the quick decision than the result after it,” Udoka said earlier in the week. “The quick decision is the main thing. When he holds it he draws attention - obviously he’s the center of attention out there. So quick decisions is one thing.”
All of these plays result in relatively quick decisions from Tatum. He’s not holding the ball very long, which prevents the defense from fully loading up. When he makes quick decisions and drives, more often than not he’s going to get into the paint or close enough to it to make plays. And to be fair, a few of those low paint-touch games did include some similar plays where the ball almost made it into the lane but the attention he drew produced a similar result.
But paint touches are a great way to really hammer the point home because they are so deadly. An attacking Tatum is a good Tatum, and that doesn’t just apply to his point totals. The more he can draw defenders rather than passively wait to handle a blitzing defense, the more he’s going to create opportunities for his teammates and take that next step people have been asking for.