Rob “Hardy” Poole: Jaylen Brown’s clutch three can’t erase Jayson Tatum’s late-game woes
This morning on the Toucher & Hardy radio program, Rob “Hardy” Poole discussed Jayson Tatum’s performance in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals. Hardy emphasized that the game should not have gone to overtime, highlighting that Boston had two double-digit leads and Tatum’s last points came at the 9:44 mark of the fourth quarter. Tatum missed several critical shots down the stretch and did not attempt a shot for five minutes, which Hardy criticize and contrasted Tatum’s inability to close out the game with Paul Pierce, stating that despite Tatum being a better player, he hasn’t proven to be the go-to guy in clutch moments.
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TRANSCRIPT:
“It should have never gone to overtime in the first place. They had two double-digit leads down the stretch, or at least in the second half, and Jayson Tatum made a field goal at the 9:44 mark of the fourth quarter. OK, Boston’s up. They were already up. This is important. They were up 96-95. Tatum makes a bucket, making it 98-95. That’s the last points he put on the board in regulation. That was it. At 8:31, Tatum misses a 16-footer. He doesn’t attempt another shot. Your star, your guy, doesn’t attempt another shot for five full minutes of game time. Then he misses a pull-up three that would have given them the lead again, because at that point they’re down 108-107 with 36 seconds left. So now, another three minutes go by off the game clock before he attempts another shot, misses another pull-up three that would have tied the game because it was 117-114. Score is still 117-114 with 14 seconds left. Tatum misses a tough shot. It was only a 15-footer, but it was a tough one. Misses that anyway, and he relies on Jaylen Brown to hit the game-tying three-pointer from the baseline. So yeah, if you’re asking me what I thought of Jayson Tatum down the stretch, I don’t look at him in overtime once they already had the lead. I look at it when they either had a slim lead or no lead at all and needed their star player to either tie the game or retake the lead, and he goes: miss, miss, miss, miss on his four shot attempts in the last 8 1/2 minutes of regulation.”
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