The Celtics had the ball, 20 seconds, and a chance to tie or beat Miami on Tuesday night.
It didn’t go well.
“I was looking for that, so that's on me to put him in a better situation,” Joe Mazzulla said after the game. “I thought they had their offensive lineup on the floor, I knew they weren't going to let him get something. But if we could get two on the ball — but again, I gotta put up a better play that allows him to see that better. He couldn't see the two on one well enough. So I gotta call a better play there.”
I think Mazzulla is taking the fall for Tatum there because if what he said is true and he anticpated two players on the ball, then there were a coiuple of things wrong with how this unfolded.
If Jayson Tatum knew the double team was coming like Mazzulla did, then he had to know he was the decoy. At this point, there are six seconds on the clock, so there's no inviting two defenders to a guy you’re expecting to score. The plan had be to embrace the blitz and use it to create a four-on-three.
The problem is Tatum approached the play like a scorer, rather than a passer.
The scorer wants to find a way to beat the double team. Tatum was looking for a way around it, which is why he went sideways. He was looking for a corner to turn, or for a way to widen the space the defenders had to cover so he could try to split the double.
A natural playmaker knows that the goal of the double team is to create the four-on-three situation and to give his four teammates as much space as possible for as long as possible in order to put maximum pressure on the three remaining defenders.
Tatum has to know that Miami is fully committed to the double team, so by backing up, the defenders will follow him. The more he backs up, the more they're going to think there's a possibility of trapping him. Tatum should use this ruse to give his teammates more space. Instead of being hugged onto the 3-point line, there should be an extra five feet of space or so.
Take a look at a similar trap recently by Miami on Luka Doncic. Watch him plant his left foot -- he’s not trying to beat this double team off the dribble. He’s just letting his teammate get clear.
Also, he’s using an assist earlier in the game to his advantage:
Doncic is a master at manipulating defenses, which is why I always use him as the standard for where Tatum should aspire to be. This assist to the corner is a brilliant no look pass. Doncic uses the same concept of just going with the flow of the double team and baiting guys to keep following him. The looks like he’s trying to find some help in the middle of the floor but he knows he has Reggie Bullock in the corner the whole time.
Going back to that first Doncic assist, he’s using that pass to Bullock to set up the defense so he can find Dwight Powell cutting down the middle. In fact, as he’s loading up for the pass, watch the Miami defender jump into that corner passing lane. He remembers that Doncic made that pass earlier, but so did Doncic.
Again, he didn’t try to blast pass the double. He rolled with it. I half expect him to make conversation with his defenders.
“Oh hi! It’s you two again. Let’s go for a walk. Just follow me over here because I’m about to torch you both and two of your teammates.”
Back to Tatum, who wasted time because he’s a scorer looking to score, not a playmaker reading the double team and getting off the ball at the right time.
Robert Williams did Tatum no favors by drifting into the teeth of the defense instead of stopping at the free throw line. If Tatum had just taken that one or two dribbles back and Williams gone to that empty space, the four-on-three would have materialized.
The defense would have reacted. Even if they didn't sell out, the ball going to the middle of the free throw line with space would have at least drawn attention.
From there, with probably four seconds left, Williams would have had one or more of three options, depending on how the defense reacted. Turn and flick it to Derrick White or find one of Grant Williams or Payton Pritchard in the corner. A fourth option would have been just to take a power dribble and challenge Bam Adebayo at the rim, but we probably would have seen a pass there.
A pass from Rob to White would have taken a second. White probably would have swung it to Grant for the shot, but if Adebayo reacted it could have gone back into Rob in time.
Or, White could have decked it and drove past Tyler Herro setting up a floater or a lob to Robert Williams, or again a possible kick out to Williams for a 3-pointer. The personnel on the floor was good for Boston if they played it right.
"I think not calling a timeout was smart,” Tatum said. “Obviously, they trust me in that situation to make the right play. Regardless of being double teamed or not. I can't let us down like that and not even give ourselves a chance really to win the game."
I could argue that once Mazzulla saw Tatum trying to drive on the double team he should have called the timeout there. I will put it on the coach to recognize that Tatum wasn’t handling the situation perfectly so, matchups be damned, call the timeout and set up a real play. But also, that was a really quick situation, so he would have had to call the timeout at the perfect time, and refs would have had to see it.
Also, I should note that with normal personnel, this play becomes easier to handle. They left Robert Wiliams to double team, but would they leave, say, Malcolm Brogdon? Jaylen Brown? Even Al Horford? The full Celtics team in that situation executes that play very differently.
But Tatum is an MVP candidate for a reason, and he’s supposed to navigate that situation better. When he attacked the double team with the intent to score, he gave it its power. When the scoring possibility was erased, he gave up the ball, but he was too flustered, or tired, or rushed, to make the right play. Robert Williams should have done more to give him an outlet, but Tatum missed his window for that pass earlier.
If the Celtics are going to put Tatum in those situations to create, he has to think like a creator. If a path is there for him to score, obviously he should pounce on it, but he shouldn’t be probing for one. I know he thinks his job is to be the guy who makes those shots, but the Celtics continue to ask him to use the fear of that shot making to create mismatches and easier scoring opportunities for teammates. He has to start approaching plays like that if he’s going to make them more regularly.