What is Tatum’s best revenge against Steve Kerr, Warriors? originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston
The much-ballyhooed Jayson Tatum revenge opportunity is finally here.
We don’t need to tell you the backstory, right? Tatum was having a pretty rad summer. The NBA title. The gold medal. The richest contract extension in NBA history. The 2K cover. About the only thing that didn’t go exactly to plan was his playing time with Team USA at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
For that reason, Steve Kerr unseated Kyrie Irving as Villain No. 1 in Boston.
It’s probably not the biggest slight to have your playing time curtailed on a 12-player, six-game summer exhibition featuring a slew of Hall of Fame-bound teammates. Alas, the great ones find motivation in even the tiniest slights.
Which is why Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla cackled with delight at Tatum’s sliver of misfortune. While everyone around Tatum tried to talk him up, accentuate all the positives, and offer their own exasperation about his Team USA playing time, Mazzulla celebrated it. And he asked Tatum one question:
“How are you going to respond?”
Tonight, at what should be a rather delirious TD Garden, we’ll get our answer.
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Maybe Tatum will give Boston fans what they want: some sort of monster scoring explosion replete with icy glares in the direction of the Golden State bench. Kerr has already braced himself for the loud boos he’ll undoubtedly hear during pregame introductions, and we’re ready for the occasional, “USA! USA! USA!” chants after any Tatum bucket.
But, in our mind, the best revenge would simply be Tatum not getting wrapped up in the emotions of the game. It would be Tatum taking any additional attention the Warriors might send his way in hopes of extinguishing a loud game, and turning it into easy buckets for his teammates.
Tatum doesn’t need to prove anything to anybody. That shiny gold Larry O’Brien Trophy lifted a weight from those broad shoulders. And Tatum admits he has far loftier goals for his legacy than a regular-season game against a coach that erred with his usage.
Lost in the Tatum vs. Kerr hoopla is a pretty intriguing early season matchup. The Celtics’ schedule through the first couple months of the season is devoid of particularly sexy matchups — opening night against the Knicks was big for obvious reasons, including the team’s ring-collecting process — but calendar circling doesn’t kick into overdrive until later this month with an NBA Cup visit from East-leading Cleveland (Nov. 19) and with a dance with the Wolves (Nov. 24).
Look, Tatum is almost certainly going to get his points Wednesday night. The absence of Jaylen Brown means a bigger need for Tatum’s scoring output. But we’d settle for Tatum’s line from Boston’s lopsided stomping of the Warriors here last March: 27 points on 9-of-13 shooting, five assists, +40 over 25 minutes.
If you take a step back and ignore the Team USA plot, there’s another storyline here about one dynasty — maybe trying to make one last run at title contention — visiting a team that took their 3-point-heavy game plan, put it on steroids, and is trying to create a dynastic run of its own.
Tatum and the Celtics can’t let emotions cloud the bigger vision.
We keep thinking back to the the 2022-23 season and Boston’s first meeting with the Warriors in the aftermath of the 2022 Finals. Boston came in way too hyped, and despite Tatum’s suggestion that the outside world hyped the game more than the players did, it was clear the Celtics were a little too wired that night.
The Celtics have been far more locked in since then. They beat the Warriors in overtime in a rematch at TD Garden that season, then last season, the script completely flipped. Boston lost an overtime game in the Bay in December, but smashed the Warriors by a staggering 52 points at the Garden.
Was that the eviction notice on any bit of real estate that Golden State might have still owned in Boston’s head? Was it the start of a passing of the torch of champions?
Kerr vs. Tatum is a fun storyline to add a little sizzle to an early season matchup. But there’s more at play here than a little DNP revenge.
