With no Kyrie, Horford, Brown, or Smart (or Hayward), last night Jayson Tatum was thrown into the deep end. How'd he do?
He was aggressive. He took a team high 23 shots, which I liked. He made only 9 of those shots and was 0-2 from 3, which is not good. More crucially, for this game, he went 1-3 from the FT line. Tatum is an 82% FT shooter on the season and if he had gone 2-3 from the line last night, the C's would've won the game. We've seen Tatum make clutch plays in the past so I'm not worried about the sky falling. Heck, the second FT he missed came after a clutch drive to the basket and finish through Gortat's foul. So there's only so hard I can complain.
6 assists and 2 turnovers. Only Rozier finished with more assists last night. Tatum had not done much playmaking for others this season, which I've attributed to his place in the offense and finding his way as a rookie. This game was heartening from that respect as he took on the challenge and was able to find teammates last night.
I wasn't blown away by the performance but I think he did a lot of good things and I'm encouraged. I'd be more encouraged if he had hit his FT's but we can't have everything.