Jayson Tatum had no shot.
Nothing.
He rolled in traffic with a wobbly handle and a zero angle. The Knicks invaded it with three players and three remaining seconds in the left corner. He collapsed like a dying star.
If you want to know why Celtics are looking at an unforeseen 0-2 deficit by everyone in basketball observation, start.
Start with the dying star.
Through two games, the Celtics were scored with Tatum on the ground. He scored 13 points on 19 shots widespread on almost 42 minutes of action on Wednesday in match 2. He sank the chances of the Celtics at the end of match 1, efforcing the 3 percentage points with low percentage in the last minutes because he wanted the Kobe back to the place of a hard training that could have caused a layoff or thumbs up.
Tatum is the problem.
No trouble in shooting, nor an injured support cast, although the two obviously registered the offensive of the Celtics for long sections. The reigning champions of the NBA are two games from the elimination against a team with fundamental defensive problems that they swept in the regular season because their superstar takes place.
The touch of Tatum seems to have disappeared. It draws 28.5% of the soil and 25% of 3. The cycling of the KNICKS of defensive diagrams – from the transition to the coverage of the coverage to meet it at the level of the screen – the disorder. A top 5 player in the world seems lost.
Even his basket of green light with 18.5 seconds remaining was a gift. Joe Mazzulla designed a piece for Tatum to take the inbound pass, then an Al Horford screen in the middle of the field to allow it a track towards the edge against the center of Knicks at the Mitchell Robinson exercise. Once Tatum passed Robinson, it was over. Handling everything with decent bullets in the NBA could have rinsed this dunk to set up 90-89.
But dragging by one and left to himself, left to hunt Robinson on a switch during the last possession, Tatum failed.
Just like the end of the regulations in match 1.
Meanwhile, his star counterpart soar. Jalen Brunson hunts and kills, even Jrue Holiday.
Unable to shake the holidays with a screen on the last possession of the Knicks, he danced a vacation alone, then jumped in front of him near the line of fault. This has put a vacation, a fully defensive player in an impossible position. Holiday did the intelligent thing because it was the only thing, and dirty Brunson before he could have a clean look.
There is no shame there, even if Brunson, a 82%free throwing shooter, kept the two shots to take the lead. But there is enough shame for all the people involved when they blow a 20 -point lead for a second consecutive eliminatory match; A first in the history of the NBA.
Because the collapses begin with cracks. The cracks are in trouble, sometimes misfortune.
After the Celtics led by 20 at the end of the third quarter, then 16 with 8:40 to play, the cracks appeared.
The Knicks reduced the Celtic to new, then seven, then four in the last minutes. The missed rotations and the bad offensive pace followed. A nervous whisper in the garden has given way to anxious roar, as if the crowd could scream confidence in its team.
No dice.
The Celtics missed a wave of 3S. Brown missed a triple superior above the rupture after Tatum failed in a large open look in the right corner and that Derrick White could not connect to a 3 hold-and-shoot of the left wing, quite consecutive.
Bad timing, Back Lucky.
But once the Knicks have closed in one, Tatum attacked Og Anunoby, the best defender in New York, in a 1 match in 1. He settled for a fall along the straight base line.
Bad decision. Miss.
Then, Brunson buried a green bucket on the other side, and Brown responded with a mid -range jumper off balance sheet, hoping, praying for a whistle.
Poor execution. Miss.
Right now, a slow and painful basketball death written mainly by the largest stars of the Celtics. Brown at least is injured. Tatum has no excuse. Not even for his first half game.
After the Celtics were predictable on a two -digit advance in the first quarter, driven by their despair, the game slowed down and the lead decreased. Tatum continued to shoot as if he lacked a finger and entered half-time with only two points. The Knicks dragged, clinging to a confidence that Celtics can no longer extinguish even if they spill three consecutive eruptions.
Knicks know they can win this series. Hell, a scan is on the table, as unforeseen and impossible that it was ringing 48 hours ago.
But it is the reality that Celtics are confronted now, not thanks to their best player.
Without forgetting, other problems abound before match 3.
Kristaps Porzingis went less-9 in his 14 minutes of action on Wednesday. He took no shot and raised a rebound in the first half. He played like a ghost; A ghost who refused to publish the guardian of the rescue knicks, Cam Payne, on his final possession before half-time, despite a 10-inch advantage.
Mazzulla is only awarded Porzingis after the Celtics mounted what looked like an 18 safe points in the third quarter. Porzingis played several minutes with Horford, but the Knicks began to win these double Big battles forcing him to leave the ground.
Porzingis was listed as probable before the tip. It seems likely now that he will not come back anytime soon, and perhaps for the whole series, thanks to his mystery illness in progress.
This will leave Tatum on the left to take over and cover the cracks.
The star of the n ° 0 jersey, which played as a Zero All series.
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