76ers (1-0) at Celtics (0-1) Round 2 Game #2 5/3/23

[Kuberski33]

I was looking a little deeper into the stats from Game 2.  Tatum was +24 in his 19 minutes (best on the  team) and had a NRTG of 56.6, also best on the team.  His DRTG was 68.4, much better than the team overall of 91.6.  His ORTG was 125 if you don't want to do the math.

Point is that even though his traditional box score stats were really low, he seemed to have been impacting the scoreboard in a big way.  Either that, or he was just really lucky to be on the court during the times when things went the Celtics' way.

Part of Doc Rivers' explicit plan was to get Tatum in foul trouble: whaddya all think?

I don't think that's a real strategy for any NBA team - trying to get a guy in foul trouble. I say that because of the way games are refed. There is, I think, I concerted effort made to not foul out stars - at least early in games.

As much as we criticize NBA refs - and we all do - there is an art to making sure the stars are still around to finish games. You don't see them foul out much, if at all. And when it happens it's usually at the end of games or in OT.