Tim BontempsESPN
BOSTON – Jason Tatum had a simple solution for the Boston Celtics to recover with a win in Game 5 of the NBA Finals on Monday night – he just needs to play better. “That is, I give [the Golden State Warriors] “Credit,” Tatum said after Boston’s 107-97 loss to Golden State in Game 4 at TD Garden on Friday night, making it 2-2. “It’s a great team. They play well. They have a game plan, things like that. “It’s up to me. I have to get better. I know I influence the game in other ways, but I have to be more efficient, I have to shoot the ball better, I have to finish better on the edge. “I take responsibility for that.” 2 About Tatum has not played by the standards he has set for himself in this series. She shoots 34% from the field and although she has had a great time in Boston’s two wins, collecting 22 assists and four errors, she has nine assists and 10 errors in her two defeats. Tatum, along with the rest of the Celtics, short-circuited in the fourth quarter on Friday night, making just two shots in the last seven minutes. This allowed Golden State to close the game with a 21-6 run, overturning the result in its favor up to the series. “Obviously we felt we were putting ourselves in a position to win the game,” said Tatum, who was 1-on-5 in the fourth quarter. “There are a lot of things we wish we had done differently, especially at the attacking end. I think we were very stagnant late in the quarter by everyone.” It all starts with Tatum, however, who won the MVP award in the Eastern Conference finals and is the face of the Celtics franchise. He has been portrayed as the opposite number of Warriors protagonist Stephen Curry throughout this series, but on the court Curry was unmatched. That was certainly the case in Game 4, when Curry had 43 points, 10 rebounds and four assists and dominated every second he was on the floor. Tatum’s night, meanwhile, was iconic in Boston’s poor decision-making for much of the game. He had five caps and was a big part of the team’s stagnant attack throughout. Asked if he was putting too much pressure on himself, Tatum said no and that he just had to be better. “I think it’s as simple as it is,” he said. “I just had to get better. I know I can get better, so it’s not that I, myself or my team are asking for something I’m not good at. They know the level and I know the level I can play carefree. “It is up to me to do this more often than to help my team in the best way I can. It is not a lot of pressure at all. It is like my job.” When asked what he has seen from Tatum so far in the series, Celtics coach Ime Udoka pointed to the foul hunt instead of trying to finish through contact. “Sometimes he looks for fouls,” Udoka said. “It’s a team that loads into specific games. It finds the way out. It shoots over two, three players. This is the balance of being aggressive and picking your points and doing what it did in previous games, which they chase after him and succeed. “This is an ongoing issue, so to speak. It reaches the basket, it’s a scorer but also a playmaker. They do a good job with their spins. Sometimes they chase fouls instead of finishing. I’ve seen it in a few games so far.” Moving forward, what the Celtics need to see is Tatum, who has repeatedly appeared in big positions before in these playoffs, such as his 46-point effort at Milwaukee in the 6th Eastern Conference semifinal match to prevent exclusion by John. Antitokunbo and the defender of the champion Bucks. A similar performance in Game 5 in San Francisco on Monday night could give Boston a chance to close that series back in Boston next Thursday in Game 6. Tatum said he remains confident he and the Celtics can recover. “We are not doing this — on purpose,” Tatum said. “I promise we do not. We try as hard as we can. There are some things we need to clear up. Obviously upsets, movement at the end of the attack. We wish we had won today and been up 3-1? That would be the best scenario. “But it’s the Finals. The art of competition, they came here feeling they had to win. It was not easy. I think that’s the beauty of it, that it will not be easy. It should not be. “We know we both want it, and we have to go get it.”
