Jayson Tatum's Playmaking

[DefenseWinsChamps]

Jayson Tatum's playmaking took another step forward this playoffs, but especially against the Raptors. He's averaging 4.2 apg against the Raptors, but those numbers don't fully demonstrate the growth we've seen. It's not just an extra drive-and-kick each game. He's manipulating multiple levels of the Raptors defense and then whipping the ball to open teammates. He's had some one-handed hook cross-court passes that only the best players in the NBA make. He's made some passes where he dribbled to manipulate help defenders one way and made a pass to the second option, because he knew a rotation defender was coming to his first option.

His turnovers are up slightly, but this isn't a simple stats development to his game. He's becoming a much, much better distributor than he was during the season. Some of this is because teams now have to account for his scoring so much more, which puts them off-balance, but I have not seem him make the reads or passes in his entire career that he's been making in this series so far.

That's super-exciting to me, because it makes the entire team better.