Welcome to “One Play!” Throughout the 2021-22 NBA season, our TSN staff will break down certain possessions from certain games and peel back the curtains to reveal their bigger meaning.
Today, Celtics star Jayson Tatum takes the spotlight.
Context: There was no shortage of excitement in Game 1 between the Celtics and Nets.
The Celtics led by double figures entering the final quarter, but Kyrie Irving came alive to get the Nets back in the game. Irving scored 18 of his game-high 39 points in the fourth quarter and hit a 3-pointer with 45.9 seconds remaining to give the Nets a three-point lead.
Jaylen Brown responded with a dunk, setting the stage for a wild finish with Jayson Tatum sneaking behind the Nets to score a game-winning layup at the buzzer.
How did the Nets lose track of Tatum of all people? Let’s take a closer look.
Breakdown: Al Horford rebounds a missed 3-pointer from Kevin Durant and quickly gives the ball to Derrick White, who then advances it to Brown. With the clock winding down, Brown wastes no time attacking the basket, getting by the smaller Goran Dragic and drawing an additional defender in Bruce Brown.
Bruce Brown’s double prevents Jaylen Brown from getting to the rim, but Jaylen Brown calmly stops and pivots in the opposite direction.
Now’s a good time to take stock on who everyone on the Nets is defending.
Irving has White on the right wing, Durant picks up Tatum at the top of the perimeter, Nicolas Claxton is on Horford on the low block and Dragic stays on Jaylen Brown.
Bruce Brown? He parks himself in the paint just in case Jaylen Brown tries to attack again.
That means nobody is guarding Smart, who makes himself as big of a target as possible by waving his arms around.
Spotting Smart, who scored 20 points on 4-for-9 shooting from 3-point range in this one, from the corner of his eye, Brown kicks the ball out to him. That draws not one, but two defenders in Bruce Brown and Claxton.
Smart doesn’t settle for the shot. Instead, he gets Brown and Claxton in the air with a fake and takes one dribble towards the basket.
This is where it gets interesting.
Not wanting Smart to get a straight-line drive or Horford to roll to the paint, Dragic rotates off of Brown. White relocates to the right corner, but Irving helps all the way off of him.
The Nets should be in decent position, but … they forget about Tatum.
Both Dragic and Irving are focused on the ball and Durant loses sight of Tatum when he makes a cut towards the basket.
Smart passes it to Tatum, Tatum spins around Irving and lays the ball in to give the Celtics the win at the buzzer.
Why it matters: A few things.
First, the obvious one: Boston overcame a monster game from Irving to take a 1-0 lead. Plays like this can end up being the difference in a series.
Two, great patience by Smart. As Draymond Green noted after the game, the old Smart may have settled for a contested 3-pointer, but the new Smart had his point guard hat on.
And there’s the difference in the Celtics team. Last year Marcus Smart would’ve taken that shot. Ime got him to buy in and be the Marcus smart everyone loved out of Ok State. BEAUTIFUL! Looking like a true PG again! That’s what made Him special!
Even Tatum, who has been teammates with Smart for five seasons, thought he was going to shoot it.
“We all thought Smart was gonna shoot it,” Tatum said after the game. “So last-second shot, just crash the glass … But when he took that dribble, we just kind of made eye contact and he made a great pass and I just had to make a layup.”
Three, Tatum’s game-winner is going to get a lot of the attention, but it shouldn’t overshadow Boston’s last defensive stand.
The Celtics finished the season with the best defensive rating in the league. Even without Robert Williams, who was both a Defensive Player of the Year and an All-Defensive candidate, they have the smarts, length and versatility to match up with and fluster just about anyone.
They put that on full display on the possession prior. Smart applied pressure on Irving while Horford abandoned Bruce Brown to double him. (You think the Celtics wanted to get the ball out of his hands?) Durant received the ball with 4.0 seconds remaining on the shot clock, which is usually enough time for him to create something, but Tatum defended him perfectly, forcing him into a tightly contested 3-point attempt.
It doesn’t get much better than this:
The @celtics were the #1 defense in the NBA during the regular season, and they showed it on the final defensive possession of the Game 1.
Tatum, by the way, wasn’t just special offensively, finishing with 31 points and scoring the game-winning layup. He helped the Celtics limit Durant to 23 points on 9-for-24 shooting from the field. There aren’t many players in the league today who can impact the game on both ends at the level Tatum can.
It’s only one game, but the Celtics showed why they’re a legitimate contender to come out of the Eastern Conference.
Montreal Alouettes wide receiver Tyson Philpot has announced he will be out for the rest of the CFL season.
The Delta, B.C., native posted the news on his Instagram page Thursday.
“To Be Continued. Shoutout my team, the fans of the CFL and the whole city of Montreal! I can’t wait to be back healthy and write this next chapter in 2025,” the statement read.
Philpot, 24, injured his foot in a 33-23 win over the Hamilton Tiger-Cats on Aug. 10 and was placed on the six-game injured list the next week.
The six-foot-one, 195-pound receiver had 58 receptions, 779 yards and five touchdowns in nine games for the league-leading Alouettes in his third season.
Philpot scored the game-winning touchdown in Montreal’s Grey Cup win last season to punctuate a six-reception, 63-yard performance.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
NAPA, Calif. (AP) — David Lipsky shot a 7-under 65 on Thursday at Silverado Country Club to take a one-stroke lead after the first round of the Procore Championship.
Winless in 104 events since joining the PGA Tour in 2022, Lipsky went out with the early groups and had eight birdies with one bogey to kick off the FedEx Cup Fall series at the picturesque course in the heart of Napa Valley wine country.
After missing the cut in his three previous tournaments, Lipsky flew from Las Vegas to Arizona to reunite with his college coach at Northwestern to get his focus back. He also spent time playing with some of the Northwestern players, which helped him relax.
“Just being around those guys and seeing how carefree they are, not knowing what’s coming for them yet, it’s sort of nice to see that,” Lipsky said. “I was almost energized by their youthfulness.”
Patton Kizzire and Mark Hubbard were a stroke back. Kizzire started on the back nine and made a late run with three consecutive birdies to move into a tie for first. A bogey on No. 8 dropped him back.
“There was a lot of good stuff out there today,” Kizzire said. “I stayed patient and just went through my routines and played well, one shot at a time. I’ve really bee working hard on my mental game and I think that allowed me to rinse and repeat and reset and keep playing.”
Mark Hubbard was at 67. He had nine birdies but fell off the pace with a bogey and triple bogey on back-to-back holes.
Kevin Dougherty also was in the group at 67. He had two eagles and ended his afternoon by holing out from 41 yards on the 383-yard, par-4 18th.
Defending champion Sahith Theegala had to scramble for much of his round of 69.
Wyndham Clark, who won the U.S. Open in 2023 and the AT&T at Pebble Beach in February, had a 70.
Max Homa shot 71. The two-time tournament champion and a captain’s pick for the President’s Cup in two weeks had two birdies and overcame a bogey on the par-4 first.
Stewart Cink, the 2020 winner, also opened with a 71. He won The Ally Challenge last month for his first PGA Tour Champions title.
Three players from the Presidents Cup International team had mix results. Min Woo Lee shot 68, Mackenzie Hughes of Dundas, Ont., 69 and Corey Conners of Listowel, Ont., 73. International team captain Mike Weir of Brights Grove, Ont., also had a 69.
Ben Silverman of Thornhill, Ont., had a 68, Nick Taylor of Abbotsford, B.C., and Roger Sloan of Merritt, B.C., shot 70 and Adam Svensson of Surrey, B.C., had a 71.
Lipsky was a little shaky off the tee for much of the afternoon but made up for it with steady iron play that left him in great shape on the greens. He had one-putts on 11 holes and was in position for a bigger day but left five putts short.
Lipsky’s only real problem came on the par-4 ninth when his approach sailed into a bunker just shy of the green. He bounced back nicely with five birdies on his back nine. After missing a 19-foot putt for birdie on No. 17, Lipsky ended his day with a 12-foot par putt.
That was a big change from last year when Lipsky tied for 30th at Silverado when he drove the ball well but had uneven success on the greens.
“Sometimes you have to realize golf can be fun, and I think I sort of forgot that along the way as I’m grinding it out,” Lipsky said. “You’ve got to put things in perspective, take a step back. Sort of did that and it seems like it’s working out.”
Laird stayed close after beginning his day with a bogey on the par-4 10th. The Scot got out of the sand nicely but pushed his par putt past the hole.
Homa continued to have issues off the tee and missed birdie putts on his final four holes.
GUADALAJARA, Mexico – Canada’s Marina Stakusic is moving on to the quarterfinals of the Guadalajara Open.
The Mississauga, Ont., native defeated the tournament top seed, Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia, 6-3, 5-7, 7-6 (0) in the round of 16 on Thursday.
Stakusic faced a 0-4 deficit in the third and final set before marching back into the match.
The 19-year-old won five of the next six games to even it up before exchanging games to force a tiebreaker, where Stakusic took complete control to win the match.
Stakusic had five aces with 17 double faults in the three-hour, four-minute match.
However, she converted eight of her 18 break-point opportunities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
