In the moments just before tipoff against the Charlotte Hornets, with a crowd heavy on Duke fans not yet experiencing the pains of March Madness heartbreak, Jayson Tatum flexed his bicep and pointed to the stands.
The crowd erupted, and that wouldn’t be the only time on Sunday night.
In his best scoring performance since his return on March 6, Tatum scored 32 points on 52% shooting, making it the first time he’s reached the 30-point threshold in a regular season game since April 8, 2025 against the New
York Knicks. It was also his first time back in uniform at the Spectrum Center since Nov. 2 of last year, a place where he’s tormented the Hornets with 30 or more points 11 times.
“He did a good job just getting to the spot that he wanted,” Joe Mazzulla said. “He did a great job on the offensive end just diagnosing different coverages and making the play that was necessary.”
Tatum has long prided himself on his availability for road games where fans travel from all over to sport his jersey and rep the Celtics from outside of Boston. Their 114-99 win was another chance for him to show out in front of a Charlotte crowd that consistently showered him with praise bucket after impressive bucket.
“I don’t decide, ‘S—t we playing the Hornets tonight, Ima chill. I only get to go to Charlotte two times a year. Somebody paid their money to come watch me play,” Tatum said in July 2024.
On Sunday night, the home of the Hornets often sounded eerily similar to the crowd pop in the Garden, starting with an uproariously loud response to his game-opening two-handed dunk. Tatum played a part in the team’s first 15 points before checking out at the 5:16 mark of the opening quarter, and finished with 20 points on 7-of-12 shooting by halftime.
Tatum is steadily looking more and more comfortable out on the floor, with every game providing an opportunity to show that growth in confidence as his workload increases. That was especially evident on a night where two starters in Jaylen Brown and Derrick White were on the injury report.
“I didn’t feel I was sped up or off-balance that much,” said Tatum after the game. “I still was kind of tired, so that’s something I’m working through, but I just like that I’m decisive in my movements and exploding when I needed to. Obviously, it helps when you hit shots. I can say I feel better than I did last game, hopefully I can feel better than I did today the next game I play. It’s still a work in progress.”
When the Hornets closed in on a single-digit deficit early in the fourth quarter, Tatum silenced the run in the next three minutes, assisting on a Neemias Queta dunk, driving into a 7-foot hook shot, and putting the Hornets away for good with a spot-up 3-pointer over Miles Bridges for a 16-point lead, walking back to the bench with a hand raised up toward the crowd as he checked out for the remainder of the game.
“I was competitive in the moment, and we called a timeout and got some stops and made some plays to seal the game,” Tatum said.
The win brings Boston to 50-24, officially clinching a playoff spot with eight games left to go, including a pair of road games in Atlanta and Miami on Monday and Wednesday. For Jayson Tatum, who was in his 11th game back, nothing is being taken for granted.
“You never want to take a season, a game, or making the playoffs for granted,” Tatum said. “It’s hard to win in this league. It goes to show the mindset of this organization to show top-down, we approach every single day with a winning mentality and the culture that we’ve set regardless of who’s in, who’s out, who we have on the roster.
“I think the product on the floor, it shows. It’s something to be proud of, the adversity that we’ve had to endure the last 12 months and to be the second team in the East and clinching another playoff berth, that means something.
Surrounded by media members after his best game of the season, the Boston Globe’s Gary Washburn asked Tatum if it would be crazy to say that he was back.
“It wouldn’t be crazy to say,” responded Tatum.
