Jayson Tatum has been arguably the best player in these playoffs as he led the Boston Celtics all the way to the NBA Finals. Tatum’s all-round game has been on full display during this run, as he has not only scored at a high level for most of this postseason, but he has also been a great distributor as well as defender.
That was on display in Game 1 of the Finals, as while his shot wasn’t falling for once, he still managed to be a key contributor to their win, by tallying a game-high 13 assists while registering just 2 turnovers to go with it. The evolution of his game beyond the scoring is really impressive and Tatum is now on course to accomplish a very rare feat.
Good morning.
Jayson Tatum leads this playoffs in total points and total assists. pic.twitter.com/6M726DLrl3
— StatMuse (@statmuse) June 3, 2022
“Good morning. Jayson Tatum leads this playoffs in total points and total assists.”
He has a fairly big lead when it comes to the points, with 498 as compared to his nearest challenger who is still in these playoffs in Steph Curry, who has 449. It is a bit closer when it comes to assists, with 119 as compared to 106 for Draymond Green, but it is still a sizable gap.
He looks a good bet to hold on to the lead in both criteria and should he do so, he’d be only the 3rd player to achieve this feat in this century, after Allen Iverson (2001) and LeBron James who did it 5 times, with the most recent one being the 2018 playoffs.
That’s quite some company to be a part of and while some may try to diminish the feat by stating that he has the lead only because he has played more games, we again go back to the fact that only two individuals have done it in all this time and one of them is the greatest player of this generation. Tatum deserves the praise coming his way, and he’ll be looking to cap off this great postseason run with a championship.
