Jaylen Brown snared a rebound off of a miss from Ja Morant and found Jayson Tatum in wide open space on the other end. Without taking a dribble, Tatum flew for a one-handed dunk, let out at a scream and pounded his chest with both of his fists.
In a back-and-forth game against another young NBA star, the play was the exclamation point as Tatum ultimately came out on top again. The Celtics star scored 39 points – which included 19 in the second quarter, as he outdueled Morant, who had 27 for the Grizzlies and brought them to the lead in the third. But the C’s held on in the late moments for a 109-106 win on Monday night in Memphis.
Tatum’s dunk put the C’s up 105-94 with 3:21 to go, but Boston went inexplicably cold offensively, and coupled with a few turnovers, let the Grizzlies back in it. Both Marcus Smart and Tatum missed two free throws in the final minute, and Dillon Brooks’ dunk with 17.3 seconds left made it 105-103.
But they pulled through when they needed to. Grant Williams, who hadn’t taken a shot all night, drilled two free throws, and after a Desmond Bane triple with 3.5 seconds left, Tatum made two free throws. Without a timeout, the Grizzlies couldn’t get a shot off as Morant slipped in the backcourt, and the C’s survived. Tatum has defeated Morant in all of their head-to-head matchups in their young careers.
Other takeaways from the win, which improved the Celtics to 7-3:
– After a slow start to the season that was amplified by some rough shooting performances, Marcus Smart has been on point the last two games. The point guard was instrumental in setting his teammates up as the Celtics erupted for a franchise-record 27 3-pointers in Saturday’s win over the Knicks, and he made the offense look easy again Monday.
Smart scored or assisted on the Celtics’ first 16 points of the game as he was posted 10 points and three dimes early, and he continued to make the right reads all night. Perhaps fueled by some back-and-forth trash talk with a fan sitting courtside, Smart finished with 15 points and 12 assists, his second consecutive double-digit assist game. He has a 23-3 assist-turnover ratio in the Celtics’ last two wins.
– The Grizzlies, who entered the night second in the NBA in offensive rebounding, dominated the glass to start the game even without Steven Adams as they scored 10 second-chance points in the first quarter. But the C’s were much better as they held Memphis to just six second-chance points over the final three quarters.
– For the first time this season, Derrick White came off the bench. Joe Mazzulla made a last-minute call to insert Williams into the starting lineup as the Celtics went with a double-big lineup against the Grizzlies. Williams didn’t make a field goal attempt, but played sound defense all night and made two clutch free throws to close out the win.
