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Tim BontempsESPN
BOSTON – All it took for the Boston Celtics to end their seven-game home win on Friday night was a 17-point comeback to force overtime – and the best game of Jayson Tatum’s career.
The 23-year-old All-Star finished with 53 career points – including 35 in the second half and overtime – to lead the Celtics to a 145-136 victory over the Minnesota Timberwolves, allowing Boston to escape. a game he followed for most of the regulation, only to provide a late advance to send the game into overtime.
Tatum, 23, became the youngest Celtics player to score 50 in a game, beating Larry Bird, who did so at the age of 26.
“Scoring 50 is an important thing in this league and especially at this age,” Tatum said. “It will be a night that I always remember and I got the victory on top – a great victory.
“Every victory right now is great.”
Friday’s game was, in many ways, a microcosm of the entire Boston season. Playing again without Evan Fournier, who missed the last few games due to NBA health and safety protocols and will not travel with the Celtics on their upcoming three-game trip to the West Coast, Boston’s lack of depth was an issue.
Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Marcus Smart and Kemba Walker played for at least 39 minutes, being the only four players in double and combined numbers to score 120 of Boston’s 145 points. And for a team that has been extremely inconsistent all season, the Celtics have once again struggled for long stretches of this game against one of the worst teams in the NBA.
These fights included a 14-point pursuit at the end of the first quarter – causing coach Brad Stevens to make a very unusual move and return to his entire starting 5 to start the second.
“To be honest, I just didn’t want to be 30 at the break,” Stevens said deadly afterwards. “He was not going in the right direction and he just wanted to keep his distance.
Although it didn’t work exactly as Stevens intended, as Boston entered the ninth inning, the Celtics finally launched their way back into the game with a 3-point dam in the second half. After going 5-for-15 deep in the first half, Boston went 14-for-27 from behind the arc in the second half and overtime – including Tatum, who shot 11-for-17 overall after the break, going with 5- to-8 behind the bow.
“When we go back to the third, you could see he had it,” Stevens said. “And the boys did a good job finding him.
“Tatum was very special tonight … Don’t confuse his quiet demeanor because he wasn’t a competitor. He’s a competitor.”
Boston needed every ounce of this competitiveness to win it. The Celtics left an 11-point lead with just over 3 minutes left to evaporate while the Wolves closed out the fourth quarter with a 15-4 round capped by a 3-point D’Angelo Russell with 8.6 seconds to send the game in overtime.
But rather than being beaten by the way the fourth ended, Boston responded with a new run to put the game away in overtime. The Celtics took advantage of Tatum’s attention to open first Brown and then Walker (twice) for triples on three straight possessions to throw the game open and give Boston an advantage they would not give up.
“Staying the course,” Smart said, when asked how Boston managed to return during overtime. “We had a few pieces that could have really transformed us and we couldn’t win on the way and we went down. We decided and we kept talking and I think we told each other that we have to keep going and just keep going. to fight against all adversity is before us. “