While the Golden State Warriors celebrate well into the night, the Boston Celtics are probably licking their wounds after getting so close to a championship. The Celtics were seemingly in control of the Finals when they led midway through the fourth quarter of Game 4 but everything went wrong from then on out. The Warriors won that game to tie up the series at 2 games apiece and they would go on to win Games 5 & 6 to come out victorious.
Jayson Tatum bore the brunt of the criticism for their Finals failure as he only averaged 21.5 points per game in the series while shooting a dismal 36.7% from the field. He also set the record for most turnovers in a postseason run and ended with a massive 100 turnovers to his name. His turnovers were a big factor in their defeat and Charles Barkley roasted Tatum for it during the Stanley Cup Finals.
"This is a regular Jayson Tatum turnover. I'm sorry, I'm just joking!"
Charles Barkley throwing shade during the first period intermission 😅 #StanleyCup pic.twitter.com/jE1pxGCTrc
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) June 21, 2022
Barkley is a big hockey fan and he was on for the ESPN broadcast of the Finals when he made that joke. Tatum is just going to have to live with these jokes this offseason and the only way to make up for it, is to ball out next season and help the Celtics get over the finish line. What’s going to be so disappointing for Tatum and the Celtics, is how they collapsed at the end of Game 4 and one can only wonder how differently the series would have panned out if they had managed to go up 3-1.
Reggie Miller was one of the few who came out in support of Tatum and he feels the Celtics have something special brewing. It is somewhat forgotten now that Tatum was sensational in the earlier rounds of the playoffs as he went toe-to-toe with some of the greats of this game like Kevin Durant, Giannis Antetokounmpo, and Jimmy Butler. One bad series, albeit at the biggest stage in the sport, shouldn’t define him and he needs to learn the lessons from this loss and come out even stronger.
