Jayson Tatum hit just one shot in the fourth quarter of Game 1 on Sunday — the game-winning layup as time expired.
Jayson Tatum delivered the first game-winning shot of the 2022 NBA Playoffs on Sunday, executing a flawless spinning layup at the buzzer that lifted the Boston Celtics to a Game 1 win over the Brooklyn Nets. The execution of that final sequence is the epitome of clutch play, one that will be replayed for years to come and has already been etched in Boston’s lengthy history books.
Jayson Tatum’s Game 1 buzzer beater joins a hallowed list of clutch Celtics playoff moments!
GAME 2: Tonight at 7 PM ET on TNT pic.twitter.com/1TcvJS8oLd
— NBA History (@NBAHistory) April 20, 2022
When we look at clutch stats, the default parameters are when the score is within five points in the final five minutes of the fourth quarter or overtime. Here are the top 10 players in total clutch points throughout the 2021-22 regular season:
RANK
PLAYER
TEAM
MIN
PTS
FGs
3Ps
FTs
1
Joel Embiid
PHI
147
158
47-100 (47.0%)
11-24 (45.8%)
53-69 (76.8%)
2
DeMar DeRozan
CHI
130
157
46-86 (53.5%)
2-4 (50.0%)
63-71 (88.7%)
3
Nikola Jokic
DEN
141
145
46-93 (49.5%)
2-11 (18.2%)
51-64 (79.7%)
4
Trae Young
ATL
116
125
35-82 (42.7%)
10-29 (34.5%)
45-51 (88.2%)
5
Ja Morant
MEM
108
119
34-81 (42.0%)
4-14 (28.6%)
47-57 (82.5%)
6
Kevin Durant
BKN
113
109
37-89 (41.6%)
8-28 (28.6%)
27-29 (93.1%)
7
Reggie Jackson
LAC
124
107
33-75 (44.0%)
8-24 (33.3%)
33-41 (80.5%)
8
LeBron James
LAL
145
105
35-91 (38.5%)
11-43 (25.6%)
24-35 (68.6%)
9
Jayson Tatum
BOS
142
97
29-78 (37.2%)
2-25 (8.0%)
37-39 (94.9%)
10
Gary Trent Jr.
TOR
152
96
27-63 (42.9%)
14-33 (42.4%)
28-32 (87.5%)
Tatum ranks ninth on this list with 97 clutch points over the course of the season but did not shoot the ball with high efficiency from the field and especially from 3-point range. Tatum was able to draw fouls and shot his free throws extremely well to help land him among the top 10 clutch scorers of the season.
In fact, Boston posted the second-lowest win percentage in games that featured clutch play during the regular season as they finished just 13-22 in clutch games.
If we look at clutch play compared to where teams are seeded in the playoffs, the Celtics are a huge outlier. The other three teams that finished as the top two seeds in their respective conferences – Phoenix, Memphis and Miami – all ranked in the top five in clutch win percentage during the regular season. Of the eight teams that have home-court advantage in the first round, Boston is the only team that finished below 12th in clutch win percentage.
RANK
TEAM
RECORD
WIN%
+/-
PLAYOFF SEED
1
Phoenix Suns
33-9
.786
107
West 1
2
Memphis Grizzlies
21-11
.656
45
West 2
4
Chicago Bulls
25-16
.610
56
East 6
5
Miami Heat
23-15
.605
18
East 1
6
Milwaukee Bucks
24-17
.585
39
East 3
7
Dallas Mavericks
22-16
.579
-11
West 4
8
Toronto Raptors
26-19
.578
39
East 5
9
Denver Nuggets
23-17
.575
7
West 6
11
Golden State Warriors
23-19
.548
10
West 3
12
Philadelphia 76ers
24-21
.533
12
East 4
13
Minnesota Timberwolves
20-18
.526
4
West 7
14
Brooklyn Nets
22-20
.524
36
East 7
17
Atlanta Hawks
18-20
.474
-27
East 8
19
New Orleans Pelicans
14-18
.438
-22
West 8
20
Utah Jazz
17-23
.425
-11
West 5
29
Boston Celtics
13-22
.371
-25
East 2
Of course, those rankings cover the entire season, and Boston really turned things around after the calendar flipped to 2022. Since Jan. 1, the Celtics went 34-12 for the third-best record in the NBA, and the best in the Eastern Conference, trailing only Phoenix and Dallas. However, during that time, Boston was still just 7-8 in clutch games, ranking 17th in the league over that span.
But watching the closing minutes of that Boston-Brooklyn Game 1, you would not believe that the Celtics were the 29th-ranked (or even 17th-ranked) clutch performing team in the NBA this season. After seeing their 11-point lead to open the fourth quarter turn into a five-point deficit with five minutes to play, the Celtics outscored the Nets 13-7 down the stretch to earn the win.
On paper, Brooklyn was a superior clutch team compared to Boston during the regular season; the Nets finished 22-20 in 42 games that included clutch time and outscored its opponents by 36 points in 163 clutch minutes (the Celtics were minus-25 in 166 clutch minutes). Brooklyn also has the top clutch scorer in the series as Kevin Durant (109) finished with 12 more clutch points than Tatum (97) despite playing 29 fewer clutch minutes this season.
But we keep separate stats for regular season and playoffs for a reason. Can Boston continue to write a new clutch narrative as the postseason continues, or will they regress back toward their regular season mean?