While basketball fans witnessed Jayson Tatum breaking the NBA's Game 7 scoring record in Boston’s series-clinching win over Philadelphia, the Celtics star made an even bigger impact off the court.
Adam Himmelsbach of The Boston Globe shared the story of the connection between the four-time NBA All-Star and a 10 year-old boy named Xavier Goncalves. After a performance for the ages, in which he scored 51 points, Tatum delivered what the young boy who has cancer called “the best day of my life.”
Celtics owner Wyc Grousbeck presented the game ball to Tatum in the locker room after the game, but Boston’s star chose to give it to a boy who is serving as a tremendous source of inspiration. According to Himmelsbach, Xavier has “undergone three surgeries to remove a cancerous tumor from his eye, 24 rounds of chemotherapy, and months of radiation treatments.”
