Zolak & Bertrand: Does Jayson Tatum deserve the scrutiny he gets?
On Monday’s edition of Zolak & Bertrand, we dove into whether Jayson Tatum deserves the scrutiny he gets from the national media.
Does Donovan Mitchell get the same treatment?
Marc Bertrand: So Jayson Tatum at halftime was in his teammates ears, telling them to be ready to go out and have a good third quarter, which clearly was an issue going back to the previous game and has been an issue at times this season coming out of halftime, being able to to pick it right back up. And they did that on Saturday. Al Horford wanted to give some credit to Jayson Tatum for that. After the game you got Joe Mazzulla calling him under-appreciated. Your reaction?
Scott Zolak: Well I’d like to go to pregame too. And I think in the flip side of that Jaylen Brown was the one getting them ready to come out of the gate because he was the one mic’d up. He’s the one whispering hey, you’re the big dog. You know what you got to do. Tatum was like yep and then getting after Derrick White and massaging his back. Get to him in the in the layup line talking to everybody, going up and down talking to the refs. There’s you two big guys right there. So Brown in pregame and Tatum at halftime. I mean, this is the problem we had last week when Joe had the 11.2 and the 1.6 numbers of the screen set, like going out of your way to find stats to to make it look good. You don’t have to do that. The guy is not under-appreciated. All we do is talk about Jayson Tatum. Best player on your team. Top five player in the league. Does he have to say that because the votes didn’t come in the way they didn’t last week? That’s what Tatum alluded to?
Marc Bertrand: No, I think he’s saying that because Tatum has a down game and he gets absolutely crushed for it. I think that’s what it is.
Tim McKone: But that should happen to a player that’s considered a top five player in the league, right? That’s what comes with it.
Scott Zolak: McKone, has Donovan Mitchell had a down game?
Tim McKone: No.
Scott Zolak: Thank you. Yeah. When you’re great and you don’t look good and something’s off. Guess what? People are going to talk about it.
Marc Bertrand: I’m not telling you I agree with him, but I think that’s what he’s responding to. I think he’s responding to all of a sudden Tatum doesn’t play well in Game 2, they lose, and it’s national headlines about Jayson Tatum not being able to carry his team. And what he’s thinking is that never happens for Donovan Mitchell. They don’t do that about Donovan Mitchell. And I would say what you said, it comes with the territory. There are higher expectations for Tatum.

Listen to the full segment!