I love Tatum but last night was not his finest game. The "hero " ball certainly didn't work out and it looked like he fell into some tunnel vision with his offensive decision-making late in the game.
It's hard for me to be upset with Tatum for last night's game. The 3 pointer at the end of regulation was really the only thing I can fault him for in this group of "failures." He should have been more aggressive taking the ball to the rim, which he learned in overtime. It took an otherworldly play to stop him in OT and I think that was the right move by Tatum. In most scenarios, that ball would have been dunked or he would have been fouled.
Tatum had to take all those shots and try to put the team on his back because Kemba once again did not show up and take control of the game. Worse than that was that the Heat exposed him defensively. We cannot rely on Smart to shoot the way he did yesterday, although it seems that he is much improved, and we wasted a golden opportunity to go up 1-0.
I think that Stevens has to take a large part of the blame for the loss. He lost the 0.5 second heave last round and the double-overtime game and now the overtime game this round. One area where I think it is obvious that he should improve is his use of challenges. To use one in overtime on a 50-50 play is not smart, given that he lost a valuable timeout for the team. Also, there were plenty of opportunities for him to use it in regulation, which given that the game went to overtime, which if used correctly, would have changed the outcome of this game.
I felt that the Celtics were the better team throughout the game, but I think we need to see more from Jaylen and Kemba in order to solidify the outcome. Also, getting Hayward back should help, but I don't really know what to expect from him. I am not confident that we will win this series, but I am hopeful that we can get a better result on Thursday.