Jayson Tatum’s buzzer-beater lifts Celtics over Nets in OT

Tatum was brilliant — playing with a perfect balance of imposing his will on the game while simultaneously getting others involved. The rest of the team looked a little zapped of energy, and a little spun-around by the high-energy Nets, but a superstar can’t afford an off-night, and Tatum delivered despite the adversity.

“I thought he just gave the game exactly what it needed,” Joe Mazzulla told reporters afterward. “[He] stayed in the present moment, and you got to see his greatness.” 

This hasn’t been an easy stretch for Tatum. A reporter tried to ask Tatum about the ongoing Jaylen Brown saga after the game, and he brushed it aside (“I’ve said my piece”). Another reporter asked him about players reaching out due to a rash of major injuries (Tatum made it clear that he does not “want to be the face of tearing a f***ing Achilles,” although he is willing to talk if players need it). He is facing double- and sometimes triple-teams defensively (which was one of the reasons he got to the free-throw line 22 times on Wednesday). 

Some pundits on social media might posit that Tatum should get used to the extra attention he is receiving, because the additional stress he is experiencing is the price of being The Guy on a team. 

The thing is, Tatum has been The Guy on the Celtics for years, no matter what other parties might believe about his PR team. He has learned how to comport himself as a superstar, he has plenty of experience taking (and a fair amount of experience making) big shots, and as the Nets were just reminded, he is becoming very adept at willing his team to a victory. 

Paul George, who is starting an awards campaign just four games into the season, summed up the game more simply.

“We got the ball to the MVP,” George said, “and he took us home.”

Neemias Queta fouling out had a ripple effect

The game likely never would have reached overtime if Neemias Queta hadn’t fouled out with 3.9 seconds remaining.

The sequence actually began with Tatum, who missed a free throw that would have put the Celtics up five. Queta then reached down to try to poke the rebound free from Julius Randle, but Randle crashed into Queta and drew a foul call from the officials, which Mazzulla challenged. The officials reviewed the play for a very lengthy stretch before upholding the call, which gave Randle an opportunity to put a point on the board. 

Then a bizarre cat-and-mouse game ensued. Randle clearly was about to miss his second free throw intentionally, but the Celtics took a calculated gamble, putting Mitchell Robinson in to help gather the rebound. Robinson did, and the Nets fouled the career 50-percent free-throw shooter gratefully. 

With the TD Garden crowd ready to go wild if he clinched the game at the line, Robinson — to no one’s real surprise — missed both. The Nets grabbed the board, called timeout, and drew up a gorgeous elevator set that freed Mikel Brown for the game-tying triple. 

The Celtics, of course, got away with it thanks to the singular brilliance of the aforementioned Tatum, but they almost dropped their second loss of the season after a very strange series of events.

“I told [Tatum] to thank Neemi for fouling at the end so that he had a position to be able to hit the game winner,” Mazzulla quipped. “To me, it’s just great teamwork and caring about the guy next to you and wanting the other guy to really succeed. 

“So I thought it was a very unselfish backcourt foul by Neemi, so that JT could be in the position to make the game winner.”

Tatum, however, was more diplomatic. 

“I should have never missed a free throw,” Tatum said. “So it was like a domino effect, a bunch of little plays led us to that. 

“Yeah, maybe Neemi shouldn’t have fouled, but I should have never put Neemi in that situation by missing the free throw. So that was on me.”

You do have to feel for Mikel Brown Jr. a bit

Brooklyn’s talented 20-year-old rookie, playing in just his second NBA game, may have gotten out a little too far over his skis — someone on the sideline appeared to have caught his ire (it’s unclear why), and after every shot, Brown turned dramatically to the bench and stared at whoever it was. 

Brown’s yapping was justified all the way through regulation — he shot 5-for-17 overall, but he caught fire in the fourth and hit several big triples, including the game-tying buzzer-beater. 

In overtime, however, Brown smoked a layup, then smoked another that he could have held for free throws in a much lower-stakes re-enactment of De’Aaron Fox’s deeply questionable decision-making during the Finals. The Celtics snagged the board and called timeout instantly, and the play Mazzulla drew up targeted Brown specifically as the defender the team wanted on Tatum. They got their wish, Brown had no chance, and the Nets went home with an 0-4 record thanks in no small part to their reliance on a rookie.

The recommendation here is to cut Brown some slack — he’s 20, he was playing in his second-ever game, and he hit some genuinely massive shots. Brown looks like he will be quite good, and sometimes, the tougher NBA lessons are best learned early.

An unlikely group changed the energy

The Celtics played much of Tuesday’s game like a car trying to start on a cold morning, but the weak battery finally caught in the third quarter thanks to some hustle plays from several unheralded sources. 

The first was Sam Hauser, who went diving for a loose ball and poked away a steal late in the quarter. Hauser finished 3-for-8 from 3-point range and has started the season red-hot from behind the arc at 50 percent as multiple young wings audition to potentially supplant him.

The second was Baylor Scheierman (who we will get to in a minute), who made a number of hustle plays while also trying to defend noted Celtics killer Michael Porter Jr. Mazzulla joked that Porter still scored 27 points, but he added that “you want guys that can impact the game without scoring, and Baylor really takes pride in that.”

Finally, Luka Garza took a massive charge and injected energy into his 12 minutes — he finished a team-high +18 when he was on the floor. 

Paul George credited that trio with “igniting the crowd.”

“They were diving on balls. They were getting extra possessions,” George said. “We were at that stretch of five, six points, we couldn’t quite get over the hump, and those guys got us over the hump.

“I thought from that point on, it ignited our team, and everybody played with that same intensity.”

Baylor Scheierman seems to like the new screening rules a little too much

On a far less impactful note, Scheierman picked up a bizarre flopping technical that left the NBC Sports Boston crew bemused. 

Here’s what happened: Scheierman, who genuinely seems to think about the game in an interesting way, may enjoy the new point-of-emphasis screening calls a little too much. As he tried to navigate a pick, Scheierman threw himself theatrically to the floor — a move that has worked several times so far this year. 

This time, however, the officials weren’t having it. They let the play finish, then whistled the technical and could be seen explaining themselves to Scheierman, seemingly letting him know that he was too demonstrative in trying to sell the call. 

Derrick White got MVP chants

With 33 seconds left in the regulation, a nonplussed Derrick White stepped to the free-throw line to chants of “M-V-P! M-V-P!” which left him confused, visibly mouthing “Me?” as he lined up the shots.