Tatum +8 in 41 minutes
Brown -20 in 37 minutes
Pretty much sums up the last 7 years.
for gawds sake are you even watching the game. Brown has played well. plus minus doesnt tell the whole story so stupid
We've seen this for 7 years. When Brown has these great shooting games, he is generally playing selfish ball and doesn't work as hard defensively. It is years and years of the same thing. Tatum played 41 minutes and Boston outscored the Heat by 6 points. Tatum sits on the bench and Brown has to step up and Boston gets outscored by 16 points in the 7 minutes Tatum rested. In game 1, Brown took just 12 shots, he had 3 assists, and just 1 turnover. He was +17 in the 34 minutes. He played much better team ball. That is the Brown we need. Not the Brown from tonight when he took more shots than Tatum and had nearly double the shots of the 3rd person. Gunner mode Brown is not good for the team, even when he is hitting shots because he doesn't play team ball. He had just 1 assist, he turned it over 3 times, and his defense wasn't very good.
While I generally agree with the advanced stats and impact of JT versus JB, I don't think this is the issue tonight.
Rather, the issue was that when Tatum was out it was largely with Joe going with the double big lineup that was an awful decision and choice all night long with them killing us from three off the high PnR. That's the more relevant aspect of the on-off numbers with Tatum, at least. In this case at least, JB being part of that lineup seems more coincidence than a cause of its futility.
Sure, and yet Brown wasn't any good OFFENSIVELY during those stretches. Take the 1st quarter. When Tatum and Jrue went out and PP and Al came in at 6:27 and Boston leading 14-9. Tatum and Jrue came back in for KP and White at 1:57 with Brown on the line and Boston trailing 24-20. While Tatum was on the bench these are Boston's offensive possessions:
KP miss 3
JB miss 3
KP miss 2
White make 2
JB make layup
KP turnover
Brown miss 2
Brown make layup
White miss 3
Al turnover
JB missed a foul shot, Tatum enters, and JB missed the 2nd foul shot
So in the 11 offensive possessions Tatum was on the bench in the 1st quarter, the Celtics made 3 shots, committed 2 turnovers, got fouled and missed both free throws, and missed 5 FG's. 3 of 11 isn't a good enough success rate to win playoff basketball games.
The Heat definitely hit some shots, but Boston has to score on more than 3 of 11 possessions. The rest of the quarter Boston had 4 possessions and scored on every single one of them (they missed a FG, but got the offensive rebound on it).
Tatum played the entire 2nd quarter.
Tatum left the game in the 3rd quarter at 5:36 and the C's down 75-70. The C's miss 3 shots on 3 straight possessions (White miss 2, KP miss 2, Jrue miss 2) before Al came in for Holiday, though the Heat didn't score either. With the 2 big lineup now in the game
White turnover
Brown turnover
Tatum re-enters the game for Brown at 3:18 with Boston now trailing 82-70 (Hauser and Jrue re-enter game as well). So in the 2 minutes 18 seconds Tatum was on the bench, Boston had 5 offensive possessions and didn't score a single point. On the first possession with Tatum back on the floor, Al missed a 2, but then Hauser hits a 3, Tatum draws 2 foul shots (which he makes), Tatum gets a dunk, Tatum missed a 2, Tatum gets another dunk, and then Tatum missed a layup right before the end of the quarter. Boston pulled to within 6, 85-79. Tatum played the entire 4th quarter (and to be fair it wasn't a good quarter from basically anyone on the team).
Tatum was basically on the bench for 16 Boston possessions in the game and Boston scored on 3 of the 16. That was the problem. It was the offense. Brown couldn't step into the role he needed to play. He simply wasn't effective without Tatum on the floor with him. This is the issue with Brown on this team. He is basically a worse version of Tatum. He provides nothing Tatum doesn't provide, and because he isn't as good as Tatum, the team doesn't work nearly as well without Tatum. So when I've said, Brown doesn't compliment Tatum, this is what I mean. Someone like Hauser who is an absolutely elite shooter, compliments Tatum. We've seen this year after year. It doesn't change because Tatum and Brown are who they are at this point.