We love to talk about pressure all the time. Playoff pressure. The pressure of expectations. Pressure from the media. But pressure isn’t real. At least, it doesn’t have to be.
Pressure is just a rush of chemicals in our brains flooding our synapses because we have placed so much value on something that not getting it would be disastrous, like missing a bunch of shots in a playoff game, for example. By believing that and accepting the responsibility that one’s basketball performance is directly responsible for the happiness of millions of people, one can trigger a response from his body that suddenly makes doing his job harder.
“I think going into Game 6, I was too – it sounds crazy – I was like too locked in,” Jayson Tatum admitted after a Game 7 performance for the ages against Philadelphia. “I was too tight, just too in my own head thinking about what do I need to do? How many points do I gotta score? You know, this is a big moment. And today, I was more myself. Yesterday, pregame, I was relaxed, laughing, joking. And that’s when I play my best – when I’m having fun.”
Pressure only exists if you let it, which Tatum figured out with about four minutes to go in the previous game at the Wells Fargo Center. Tatum, at that point 1-14 and having scored just three points, went on to outscore the Sixers for that entire quarter. Tatum was given perspective.
“I think, coming off of last game, obviously finished strong but not starting off the way I wanted. Especially our season being on the line last game, I was just excited to - we had another opportunity today as a team,” Tatum said. “Even for myself, just to kind of bounce back. I was relieved, I was happy about that. Just to get another chance. Our season could've been over in Game 6. Just being in another Game 7, being able to come back home in front of our fans. I was really excited just for the moment to come out here and play today."
Basketball is funny this way. At the end of the third quarter of Game 6, the Celtics were as good as dead. They looked their absolute worst, so bad that some writers have half-written obituaries to this season still in their draft folders.
Then Boston out-scored Philadelphia 136-101. Tatum had 67 of those points by himself. James Harden had 9.
Pressure.
The lack of it leaves space in one’s brain for other things, like confidence. Tatum missed two of his first three 3-pointers, but the confidence he had in himself allowed him to keep taking the shots he knew would fall.
He hit four in a row in the third, the first a long and winding road to the left corner where he drilled one in Joel Embiid’s face to put Boston up by seven. Tatum was relentless, actively seeking out the MVP on switches, pulling his 300-pound frame out to the perimeter, and then dusting him on drives or step-backs. Tatum had spent three games operating in fear of Embiid at the rim, but now it was his turn to torch Philly’s finest on his own terms.
“It’s a big movie,” Marcus Smart said. “Being able to just sit back, eat your popcorn and watch. Sometimes we do get in that mode where we forget that we’re on the court playing with him and you’ve gotta continue to play. Because he’s able to make shots at a high difficulty and get really hot like he did tonight. But it’s a beauty. It’s a thing to watch.”
By the time his fourth 3-pointer of the third fell, the lead was 28. Talk of pressure, and the inability to handle it, did not travel to Boston after Game 6. It stayed behind at the Wells Fargo Center for fans and talking heads to deal with. In a city known for an overrated sandwich, they can debate the mental capacities of their overrated stars for months on end.
As the closing credits rolled on Tatum’s latest blockbuster, Tatum hammered his final point home. Another 3-pointer in Embiid’s eye, and a happy skip up the court holding up an outstretched hand showing a five, and a clenched fist showing a zero. Tatum had done something no one else in the history of the NBA had done, while Embiid and Harden did the thing they always do.
Pressure is all in one’s head. Without it, there's room for all sorts of better stuff.
“At the end of the day, this is basketball. This is something I’ve been doing since I was a kid. Something that I love to do,” Tatim said. “When you go out there and relax and kind of think about those days when you were a kid at the YMCA or whatever, the game kind of opens up. Just try not to think about the pressure and what everybody’s going to say. Just focus on the game and having fun. I think that’s when I’m essentially at my best.”