Editor's note: This story was originally published on Dec. 23, 2022. On Sunday, Jayson Tatum scored 51 points in Boston's Game 7 win against Philadelphia.
JAYSON TATUM HAS replayed the two air balls he shot in the fourth quarter of the Boston Celtics' loss to the Golden State Warriors in Game 5 of the NBA Finals so many times he can tell you every last detail of the plays. From the way Andrew Wiggins and Kevon Looney were defending him to the footwork he used to set up his fadeaway from the elbow and the 3-pointer he'd confidently taken and made just a minute earlier.
The ball had come out of his hands just as he wanted it to. This was what he lived for.
"I thought [they were] going in," he says.
Then both shots fell a foot short.
The first air ball he shook off quickly. But the second one in the span of a few minutes was hard to reconcile. Tatum rarely shows what he's feeling on the court. He's stoic. But his disbelief at how his body had failed him was obvious as he ran back on defense.
He wasn't afraid of the moment.
"I was just exhausted," he says. "Mentally, physically. All the stress and pressure that I was putting on myself.
"I remember those plays vividly."
He's spent virtually every moment since thinking about them and why he and the Celtics came up short last June -- working to ensure it never happens again.
"Talent-wise, we were right there with them," Tatum says of the Warriors. "But you could tell that they had been there before. You could tell they didn't panic. They were just mentally tougher than we were and that's a hard pill to swallow."
The first few days after Golden State finished off the Celtics in Game 6, Tatum barely left his house. He left his phone on the counter, wandered around and moped. His mom cooked some food to cheer him up. His then 4-year-old son, Deuce, kept wanting to play. But he didn't want to eat or play just yet.
"Deuce gave me a hug and told me he was proud of me. Then my mom gave me a hug and I just broke down crying," Tatum says. "I felt like I let everybody down.
"I remember telling her just how tired I was and how hard it was, and I just kind of felt defeated."
Tatum had led the Celtics to the Finals with an all-time great playoff performance, winning series against Kevin Durant and the Brooklyn Nets, Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks and Jimmy Butler and the Miami Heat. He had been named the MVP of the Eastern Conference Finals and began the Finals with 13 assists in Game 1 -- the most for a player making his Finals debut -- as Boston took an early lead in the series.
But as the series wore on, he wore down.
He had been sleeping terribly. This stage had been everything he'd ever wanted. The chance to prove himself against the best and win a championship. And, for the most part, he'd met every challenge.
Then, with a chance to go up 3-2 in the series heading home to Boston, he had two air balls in the waning moments of the fourth quarter in Game 5.
All night he replayed them in his head as the Celtics flew across the country and tried to regroup for Game 6.
"I thought I was rested [for Game 6] but I played terrible then, too," Tatum says. "I didn't have any legs. I was breathing heavy."
It took awhile for him to admit his shortcomings to himself, let alone the world. Exhaustion felt like an excuse -- something a superstar is supposed to fight through (see: Flu game, Michael Jordan) or avoid altogether had he trained differently.
Celtics president of basketball operations Brad Stevens remembers a similar episode when Tatum worked out for the team in Boston before the 2017 draft.
"He actually came over to my house for dinner and was sick, but he was doing his best not to act sick," Stevens says. "The next day he worked out and he was still not feeling great. But he didn't even tell me till later on."
The Celtics liked the way he pushed through his sickness, without making excuses. In fact, Stevens says, they saw it as a defining characteristic. Great players all have different ways of handling adversity. Some rage against it, others obsess over it until they conquer it. Tatum confronts and works through it, confident he will solve the root cause.
Whatever remnants of that disbelief he felt during the Finals have long since been dealt with as he and the Celtics take a 22-10 record into Friday's game against the Minnesota Timberwolves and Sunday's showdown against the Milwaukee Bucks and work to get back to the Finals.
"He can bounce back up off the mat just as well as he can handle success," Stevens says. "That's not easy to do at any age, let alone at his young age."
So when he saw Tatum for an exit interview the morning after the Finals loss, Stevens didn't bring up the air balls or any details from the series.
"My only advice to him after the season ended was, 'Go get some rest. You deserve it,'" he says. "I'm not worried about him. He's going to take the appropriate amount of time and he's going to work because that's who he is."
IT WAS DEUCE who finally got his dad out of his funk. He talked him into going on their annual Father's Day trip to the Cayman Islands. The first day was hard. Everyone they ran into wanted to talk about the Finals. But within a few days, he and Deuce were building sandcastles, riding jet skis and taking boat tours to see jellyfish.
Over time a new resolve formed -- and a plan emerged.
He hired a chef to cook for him full time. No more Chick-fil-A breakfasts on the road or fried foods after games.
"It's just healthier options," Tatum says. "The right portions for the weight I want to play at. I'm not vegan or anything, but if I'm eating breakfast, the eggs are organic, healthier choice of bacon, the orange juice is organic. I'm not just using the regular fat butter.
"All the little things that eventually add up through the course of a season."
After a month or so, when he was finally ready to watch film of the Finals with his longtime trainer Drew Hanlen, it was obvious what had gone wrong for both Tatum and the Celtics -- other than, of course, the Stephen Curry factor.
"It kind of felt like one all-time great was just going against another future all-time great," Celtics forward Grant Williams said of Curry, who was named the Finals MVP, and Tatum.
The first observation for Hanlen and Tatum? Golden State had absolutely thwarted Tatum whenever he attacked the rim. Tatum shot 34% in the paint in the Finals, making it the worst mark by any player in a Finals over the past 25 years and the third worst by any player in any playoff series over the past 25 years among individuals with at least 50 shot attempts in the paint, according to ESPN Stats & Information's Matt Williams.
"We noticed that his driving angles were off, which meant that he was driving towards the blocks instead of towards the rim," Hanlen says. "So the first thing that we worked on was driving.
"Driving we broke down into basically three-ish components. No. 1 one was his posture. We needed his hips to play lower and him to be more on balance. No. 2 was basically the takeoff angle -- attacking the defender's palms where you're not going around the defender, you're going through the defender's palms so that eventually it's like through the defender's hips.
"Phase 3 was making sure that he was using the leverage and strength to his advantage."
After that, they worked on finishing. Tatum added a floater and a runner to his game. They did endless drills to build his confidence and touch around the rim.
The last point of emphasis was on finishing through contact.
"I basically just fouled the s--- out of him," Hanlen says, laughing.
It felt good to Tatum to do something to fix what had gone wrong in the Finals. So good that he didn't want to do much else all summer.
"Everybody knows how much I love golf," Tatum says. "I didn't play golf one time this summer in L.A."
He had his clubs with him, he says, and had plenty of people asking him to play. But between workouts with Hanlen, weight lifting, treatment and recovery work, he just didn't have time. He barely went out at night. He never went to the beach.
"That's how focused he was this summer," Hanlen says. "He was like this all day, every day. I don't think he lost one game or head-to-head matchup all summer."
At one point, Warriors forward Draymond Green called to check in on him.
"That's somebody I'm close with, so we talked for a long time," Tatum says. "He wasn't rubbing it in or anything. We just talked about the Finals, about life, about him getting married.
"He was like, 'Man, what people don't realize is you get to the Finals and you play longer than anybody else and then you lose and you don't have s--- to celebrate.'
"And he was really emphasizing that in the beginning of the training camp that we can't just think we are going to get back there. It's going to be different. We have to start all the way over. Everybody got to be committed. Everybody got to be ready because it's not going to be easy. It's not a guarantee that we get back."
The candor reinforced something Tatum had realized himself while he was in his funk.
It had taken everything he had to get to the Finals. It would take all that and more to get back.
"My mindset was different after [the Finals]," he says. "I know what it takes now. I know what it feels like. They let me get there, and now I know what more I got to do."
SO FAR THIS season Tatum has delivered in every area he worked on after the Finals loss. His 70% shooting in the restricted area is a career high. His 30.6 points a game is fifth best in the NBA. He's already the first player in Celtics history to average 30 points through his first 30 games.
When ESPN polled 100 voters last week on the MVP through the first quarter of the season, Tatum was a resounding favorite.
Tatum says he's aware of the MVP talk and appreciative of it. But that is not his focus.
"I'm not trying to prove that I'm as good as somebody else anymore," he says. "Last year I was trying to prove that when it was me and KD or me and Jimmy Butler, me and Giannis or whatever. I was trying to prove that I was in the conversation with those guys.
"This year I think I'm more comfortable in my own skin. I know who I am, I know what I can do. I know how hard I worked this summer and it's like nothing else is going to make me happy unless we get back and win [the Finals] this time."
There's a part of Stevens that wants to keep telling Tatum he put too much of the blame for the Finals loss on himself.
"Everybody was so focused on him, but I thought it was very clear we got outplayed as a team," Stevens says.
But there's another part of him that knows nothing he says is going to change how Tatum responds to that loss.
"I never worry about Jayson Tatum being ready. ... He's organized, he's prepared and he works," Stevens says. "He has a plan every day.
"I basically just fouled the s--- out of him." Drew Hanlen on putting Jayson Tatum through training drills
"And so as he ascends into what the rankers may call a 'superstar,' or whatever, he's just the same guy that has always been in our building."
Hanlen would say the same thing. In high school, Tatum would meet Hanlen at the gym every morning at 6 a.m. If one of them was one minute late, the other would send a text message.
Those habits stand out even more the closer you get to them.
"That's something I always watch with guys, especially the really good ones," Celtics guard Malcolm Brogdon says. "'What's their routine? How do they work? Is the routine changing every day? Do they not have a routine?'
"He's a guy that surprises me because he's so diligent in how he approaches the game every single day."
On one of the first days of practice, Brogdon found himself shooting on the same basket Tatum liked to use. As a routine guy himself, Brogdon immediately recognized the hierarchical implications of the situation.
He was the new guy in town after being acquired in an offseason trade from Indiana. Tatum was the face of the franchise.
"The first couple of times I did it, I was like, 'Bro, is this your hoop?' He was like, 'Yeah, but go ahead and use it. I'll wait,'" Brogdon says. "He doesn't ever kick me off the court. He doesn't ever say anything. He'll wait 30 to 40 minutes for me to finish working out."
The humility made an immediate impression on Brogdon. It validated why he had asked to come to the Celtics over other contending teams, even though he'd have to move to a bench role.
"I just think [Tatum] understands," Brogdon says. "He wants to win. He's about his teammates. He's about the organization. He's about everybody being great. Because he knows that's what's going to get us to that point, and that's what's going to make him great as well."