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Boston’s Jayson Tatum on the Celtics recent offensive leap: ‘When you start to see them go down one through 15, everybody’s feeling good’

Justin Quinn
·3 min read

Have the Boston Celtics finally turned the corner on both ends of the court with their second high-scoring game in a row and one of their most impressive performances of the season coming in the team’s 145 – 115 obliteration of a dinged-up Portland Trail Blazers squad?

The Celtics have until recently been focusing far more on getting their act together on the defensive end of the court, changing their early ill fortunes into something of a winning trend as a result. But the team’s offense has been beginning to come alive of late as well, and Saturday night’s success triggered plenty of questions to star forward Jayson Tatum about what’s changed for Boston.

“Continuing to move the ball,” answered Tatum, “especially with the bigs, (Jusuf) Nurkic and (Cody) Zeller.”

“Getting the ball moving and hitting shots,” added the St. Louis native. “Seeing some go in, shooting the ball well from the 3.”

“Obviously, it helps a lot when everyone is contributing,” he expanded, pointing to teammates like Dennis Schroder and Marcus Smart’s success against Portland as well. “It kind of opens up things for everybody else.”

Asked specifically about Payton Pritchard’s 19-point explosion off of the bench after racking up a number of DNPs while keeping the bench warm, Tatum replied “It hasn’t been ideal for him.”

“But, he’s always ready when his number is called. I know it felt good for him to see some shots go down, especially back home.”

The offensive performance put together by the team was their second in a row that saw them hit 130 points after much of the season where offense was more an afterthought while the team got its defensive schema in order, and that aspect of the win was not lost on the Duke product.

“It’s about time that we as a group on the same night hit some shots. I know it’s something that we’ve been waiting for. Guys are always in the gym putting in extra work, extra shots, so it was only a matter of time. It’s that much more rewarding when you start to see them go down one through 15, everybody’s feeling good.”

“Hopefully we can continue that into the next couple of games,” he closed.

It looked as if the offensive explosion in Boston’s 137 – 130 loss to the Utah Jazz on Friday might have been a watershed moment in the team’s ability to score, and that hypothesis gathered more positive data in the 145 – 117 blowout of Portland the following night.

If this team can continue to play as they have on both ends of the court, we might need to radically re-assess this team’s ceiling this season, but before we get to that point, we’ll need a few more wins on this road trip.

This post originally appeared on Celtics Wire. Follow us on Facebook!

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