The Celtics likely will be without Jayson Tatum for a bit after he rolled his ankle on a dangerous play from Kings center Domantas Sabonis. The injury doesn’t seem particularly serious (at least, Tatum sure isn’t sweating it), but the Celtics would be wise to exercise caution with their superstar as the playoffs approach.
Given that we may see a few games without Tatum, I wanted to look at how the team has changed in their games sans JT this season.
The Celtics have compiled a 5-1 record in the six games he’s missed, beating Detroit twice, Portland, Brooklyn, and Utah while losing to the Magic. It’s hard to draw any macro conclusions on offense or defense, as the team has had some exemplary and desultory efforts on both sides of the ball in various games, but that’s to be expected in a small sample size. In general, it’s fair to say that the Celtics haven’t suffered much on either end, although we must acknowledge the relatively weak competition in those six matches (particularly since both Detroit bouts were before the Pistons found their stride).
In the absence of any star, touches, production, and roles for the remaining players change substantially. For a super-duper-star like Tatum, it’s doubly so.
Here’s a view of how the core players’ stats have changed without him (a positive number indicates an increase in that stat without Tatum):
The big winner is Sam Hauser, who naturally sees a major playing time bump (he started in four of Tatum’s misses). Hauser’s scoring jumps to 13.2 points per game, and he gets up nearly nine triples in those contests — which, somehow, is third on the team behind Derrick White and Payton Pritchard.
Those two are the other big scoring beneficiaries, as the three combine to score 17 points more than their average with Tatum — mainly through the three-ball. The team as a whole launched at least 51% of their field goal attempts from beyond the arc in five of the six games (they average 50.1% overall).
Tatum’s absence also leaves a major playmaking void. Thankfully, Jaylen Brown has answered the bell, putting his improved passing vision to good use by becoming the primary distributor. He leads the no-Tatum team in assists per game with 6.8, 2.4 more than when Tatum plays.
The ball is in Brown’s hands more, and he clearly makes a conscious effort to fill more of a playmaker role, particularly when he punches in the teeth of the defense and draws help. Watch as he freezes Tobias Harris with the eye fake to Sam Hauser on the wing before rifling a delightful frozen rope to Al Horford in the corner:
One downside is that Brown does increase his turnovers to nearly four per game. There’s some friction involved, although the good outweighs the bad.
Tatum’s most underrated skill is his rebounding. While it takes a group effort to control the boards in his absence, I love that Jrue Holiday is the guy who steps up and does the most additional dirty work, averaging a whopping 6.8 rebounds per game in his four matches without Tatum.
Tactically, the team leans heavier on post-ups. They run about six and a half post-ups per game with Tatum present, but cracked double-digits in five of their six games without him. Kristaps Porzingis and Brown are the major beneficiaries. Without Tatum’s off-the-dribble playmaking, Mazzulla likes passing the ball into the middle of the paint. Despite an uptick in usage, Porzingis actually shoots fewer three-point attempts without Tatum, shifting into more of a midrange threat to attack mismatches and draw fouls (as he did against Brooklyn, when he went 8-for-9 from two-point range against the tiny Nets):
Finally, it’s worth noting that the team will stretch their legs more often. The Celtics averaged 20 transition possessions in games that Tatum missed, above their average in games with Tatum. As fantastic as Tatum is, he generally prefers to slow the game down and process what the defense is giving him — the Celtics get in transition less often than any team in the league. However, Brown and White like to selectively push the pedal to the metal, and Mazzulla gives them far more license to do so without Tatum.
Here’s hoping that none of this information is relevant for very long!