TORONTO — When a great team comes together, there’s always this presumption that there’s a whole lot of egos that have to be kept in check. For a head coach with little experience, establishing the authority and having the wisdom to delicately manage all that boundless confidence and expectation in one small locker room can often make or break a career.<\/p>\n
But what if the whole squashing egos heuristic is a fallacy? The Boston Celtics have exhibited ideal teamwork and harmony for a team with such awesome and absolute goals. But they don’t do it by pretending the part that drives them all individually has to be deflated. It just has to be channeled properly.<\/p>\n
“I think it would be too much to say that guys don’t have egos. I think they have egos. I think they just have healthy egos and they have an understanding,” coach Joe Mazzulla said before the Celtics beat the Toronto Raptors 105-96 on Monday. “There isn’t a guy in that locker room that doesn’t want to make All-Star or doesn’t want to be the absolute best or isn’t affected by certain things. We definitely have egos. I think everyone has an ego. Ours is healthy.”<\/p>\n
Jayson Tatum’s ego could grow bigger than Australia in most environments, but he’s managed to shape it into whatever the Celtics need of him on a given night. In the third quarter, his bag finally cleared customs as he started carving Toronto apart off the dribble.<\/p>\n
So when the Raptors went all out to blitz him in the fourth quarter, that’s when things got simple.<\/p>\n
“It just makes the game a lot easier,” Tatum said. “I’m surrounded by guys who can shoot and make plays. They’re gonna double me and it just makes the game easier for myself, and it builds my teammates’ confidence in themselves. They’re getting open shots and the game starts to open up a lot more and we just have fun doing it.”<\/p>\n
Imagine if a 22-year-old Tatum heard his future self say that. Handling doubles was his greatest hurdle at one time. Now, when teams try to make him uncomfortable, that’s his comfort zone.<\/p>\n
“I know they’re not gonna let me play one-on-one, they’re not gonna let me get comfortable,” Tatum said. “I find the right matchup they’re more than likely still gonna send the double. But we just make them pay, just continue to make them pay.”<\/p>\n
When Tatum got good at this, he understood where there were spots on the floor he wanted to manipulate the coverage and what distribution options that offered. Now he is truly taking what the defense gives him, able to work from anywhere on the floor at any time.<\/p>\n
He doesn’t have to be right on the slot to make the skip pass to the weak side corner. Tatum isn’t forcing his way into the paint just to make a kickout to a shooter. If the double comes at him from a weird angle, he knows how to work his way out of it to get the ball anywhere on the court that he wants before the defense even closes in.<\/p>\n
It means he is almost always in control of the situation, even when the opponent is trying to take away his sense of control running the show.<\/p>\n
“I thought he did a good job of picking and choosing when he can attack, knowing when he can bait the double,” Mazzulla said. “I think that’s the growth he’s shown as a player, especially this year as teams guard him differently because of our team.”<\/p>\n
More than ever this season, teams are desperate to recover as soon as he gets off the ball. There is this sense that the closing lineup is so stacked that you’ve gotta be precise with your timing on a Tatum double team.<\/p>\n
He’s gonna get that ball out of there and the end point of that passing chain is going to be a dynamic player who will just attack against the defense’s momentum to truly open things up.<\/p>\n
“It’s not that difficult. It’s just playing basketball the right way,” said Tatum. “I draw a lot of attention. I know teams are not going to let me play freely. I understand that. So watching film, knowing when they’re gonna double and just trusting it.<\/p>\n
“I could try to beat the double every time or shoot over it,” he said. “But don’t get bored making the right play over and over again.”<\/p>\n
That’s where the ego kicks in. It’s not the repetition that gets boring. It’s the lack of action.<\/p>\n
When you’re Tatum on one of these nights, your job is mostly to lure a crowd to a place where you can exploit them, then get rid of the ball and cheer on your teammates. You’re playing the decoy and everybody gets tired of watching someone do the thing they love.<\/p>\n
But then there’s the reward of giving guys like Jrue Holiday a night to put up shots in rhythm and bunches.<\/p>\n
“I like wide-open shots. I’ll take ’em,” Holiday said. “I think just having a threat like that, like somebody like Jayson or KP (Kristaps Porzi\u0146\u0123is) in the post, or when JB (Jaylen Brown) is back, having that really just opens up the game for everybody and it makes the game so much easier for everybody. So, please keep doubling so I can get open shots.”<\/p>\n
On nights when Brown is out — a right knee hyperextension kept him in street clothes — there’s always someone else to create and score.<\/p>\n
The Celtics seem to be mastering the next-man-up mentality, the \u00fcber-generic mindset every team in sports claims to have as if it’s unique to them. Every team is supposed to have a next-man-up mentality. That’s how teams work. But few teams bring the next man up and have that person fill their grander role effectively without being lost or overwhelmed.<\/p>\n
That’s the one thing the Celtics have done night in, night out.<\/p>\n
“I think the affirming thing is like you don’t skip a beat as far as what the intentionality and the execution of our process is, regardless of who’s in,” Mazzulla said. “I think that’s the most important thing.”<\/p>\n
So in crunchtime, without Brown and with Tatum being double-teamed nonstop, somebody else had to hit some tough shots. The Raptors were blitzing, but they weren’t just handing Tatum’s teammates uncontested shots on a silver platter.<\/p>\n
In the closing two minutes, Derrick White attacked the paint twice off a Tatum kickout and missed them both. It was uncharacteristic that he would be so aggressive going to the hoop in a huge moment and that he missed the shots he typically can make.<\/p>\n
So naturally, when Tatum toyed with another blitz to find White in the corner, White leaped in the air to catch the pass, then shot it off balance from behind the backboard and drained it to clinch the win.<\/p>\n
White and Holiday scored a team-high 22 points in Toronto. Holiday came through in the early onset of crunchtime, then White closed things out.<\/p>\n
“His confidence and his aggressiveness is super important,” Mazzulla said. “I think, what was the word you used at the beginning? Affirming? I mean, I don’t know if the correlation to like one of the Jays is out, so it’s Derrick’s turn. I think this year we’ve shown that like regardless of who’s out, there’s an affirmation that everyone is going to step up.”<\/p>\n
That is the healthy balance of ego. That someone can get their shine while another player is out, then go right back to their roles once everyone is healthy. Halfway through the year, there hasn’t been any of the friction that would bubble up in years past.<\/p>\n
The roster is well-constructed and the coaching is in tune with the tenor of the team. This team might be great, but it’s not just because of the talent.<\/p>\n
“You saying like having an offensive balance? Yeah. I mean, it’s as simple as we got a really good team,” Tatum said. “We got really good players that can play at a high level and just spread the love.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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