https://youtu.be/V3ILDndzPxA
Everyone’s gonna get all hyped up for Jayson Tatum scoring 60 points in the Celtics’ comeback from a 32 point deficit. I don’t even need to check the social medias right now; I know that there are tons of people, ranging from the most learned NBA scholars to the basest disgusting casuals, extolling the virtues of Tatum. And I guess that’s fair. He did, after all, score 60 points. Which is a lot to anyone not named Wilt Chamberlain. Celtics lore is pretty chock-full of stuff already, but this was a good enough performance that maybe we can find some space to wedge it in there between Larry Bird’s steal and Vitor Faverani’s second game in the league.
But what we need to be sure to acknowledge, what we need to make every effort to recognize, is that Aaron Nesmith played a huge part in the comeback. Maybe not as big as Tatum’s, but probably bigger than everyone else on the roster.
Nesmith didn’t have any points in the first half, while the Celtics got crushed by the Spurs. Tatum was already doing his thing, scoring almost all of the Celtics’ points in the first quarter and ending the half with almost half of his final point total. Tatum just kept that going; Nesmith TURNED IT ON. He was probably already hustling (apparently that’s what he does all the time, according to the Celtics commentators), but in the second half, his hustling resulted in bucketing. Add in some jumpers, and you get 16 points for him, a new career-high right after he scored 15 (not even going to apologize for not making that vid, sorry).
And that’s not even taking into account his game-sealing steal with 14 seconds left and the Celtics up by 2 in overtime. I mean, yeah, it was a horrible pass that never should’ve been thrown, but he was the one who grabbed it out of the air while Lonnie Walker looked totally dismayed and Gregg Poppovich was probably screaming.
Tatum earned his game-ball for sure. But is there any rule that says that there can’t be two game-balls? Because I want to give the other one to Nesmith. And the third one to Tacko Fall for being a huge meme.