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There was a glaring, obvious problem with Jayson Tatum from the moment he returned from his Achilles injury to play for the Boston Celtics this season.
But because Tatum was coming off injury, it was mostly pushed to the side. "Ah, he'll be fine," was the narrative.
Except on Tuesday night, just a couple days after the Celtics beat the Philadelphia 76ers by 32 to open the playoffs, it was the 'Sixers getting some vengeance in a 14-point win. And it was Tatum at the heart of the issue for the Celtics.
Now if you just look at Tatum's box score stats of 19 points, 14 rebounds and 9 assists, he looks super impactful. And he was certainly very involved.
But he shot just 8-for-19 from the floor, including 2-for-8 from 3-point range, and here we've reached the issue.
Tatum has made shots at a lower rate this season than at any point in his NBA career.
Yes, the sample size was smaller, but in the 16 games Tatum played to end the regular season, he had the lowest field-goal percentage of his career (41.1) by about four percentage points, and the lowest 3-point percentage of his career (32.9) by about 1.5 percentage points.
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There's always going to be some shooting variance game to game, but Tatum still does not appear to have fully shaken the rust off after his injury return.
This isn't to blame Tatum, either. It's just to point out that if this doesn't improve, the Celtics might be too flawed to make a deep playoff run.
No one expected a championship from Boston this season when Tatum was set to miss most or all of the campaign with his Achilles recovery. If anything, the Celtics surprised a lot of pundits who doubted them, becoming the unexpected 2-seed in the East.
But now to chase a ring this year, Boston needs Tatum to be his best self. And since returning from injury, Tatum has been less than that.
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