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One of the determiners of whether the Boston Celtics raise their 19th banner will be Jayson Tatum's adaptability. So far, a concern most fans and analysts hold revolves around his offensive efficiency. Clearly, it will take some time for his body to naturally find their mechanics back after his Achilles injury. There is one shining glimmer in his return though. He has never been this impactful in Joe Mazzulla's defensive system before and it's a role he embraced.
Tatum surprisingly shoulders a lot of Celtics' defensive rebounds
The Celtics do have quite the depth at the forward and center spots for rebounding, even Derrick White and Payton Pritchard know how to hustle for the ball. However, Tatum is different from these players.
He has a 28.9 rebounding rate since his return, which is surprisingly the best through his career. What does this mean? Well, the Celtics star would rank fourth in the NBA when it comes to this category. The people ahead of him are also not slouches too. They are insanely talented seven-footers who go by the names Nikola Jokic, Karl-Anthony Towns, and NBA MVP candidate Victor Wembanyama.
Coach Mazzulla spoke about how Tatum's return and newly revamped defensive prowess were such a positive impact for the Celtics, via Jay King of The Athletic.
“Part of the reason we were able to go to some of the more aggressive pick-and-roll coverages is we have more size behind. And that helps. Obviously, there’s a ton of grace that you want to show but once you step between those lines, there’s also non-negotiables that you’ve got to do. You’ve got to rebound, you’ve got to defend and you’ve got to compete, and he’s doing that," the Celtics head coach declared.
How does this impact the team schematics and their chances of winning the Larry O'Brien trophy?
Well, Tatum has a career-high 28.9% rebounding rate which contributes to the team's league-leading 78.2% defensive rebounding rate. All of this means that they prevent opponents from getting second-chance points or any sort of momentum from misses. These translate to the Celtics currently only holding their opponents to 107 points per game which is also the best in the NBA. This is one of the keys to winning the NBA championship when summer rolls around.
Not to mention, the Celtics also have a +11.2 rating when Tatum is on the floor. For fans who quite nerd out on numbers, this is the same ballpark that Coach Mazzulla's team operated on during their 2024 NBA Championship run. This is more impressive given the fact that they no longer have guys like Jrue Holiday, Kristaps Porzingis, Al Horford, and Oshae Brissett who helped them with that scheme in the past.
A lot of players who came from Achilles injuries were never the same on the defensive end. In all fairness, Kevin Durant, Dominique Wilkins, and Kobe Bryant were all able to shoot or make offensive plays. But, Tatum is a historical numbers anomaly when it comes to being better on defense after the injury.
The 19th banner looms and Neil Diamond's Sweet Caroline will play through duckboats again — it's on the back of an even better Tatum on defense.
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