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Jayson Tatum finally broke out of his shooting slump on January 23, dropping 51 points in the Boston Celtics win against the Washington Wizards.
Following the game, the Utah Jazz’s Donovan Mitchell tweeted at Boston’s budding superstar, sharing praise for his performance. Mitchell, who is currently injured, is rumored to have a good relationship with both of the Celtics star wings and was the first NBA player to tweet at Tatum following his record-breaking performance.
While Tatum’s scoring exploits helped his team to victory and gave frustrated fans reason for optimism, the All-Star wing also overtook a long-standing record previously held by Celtics legend Larry Bird.
Overtaking a franchise legend at the age of 23 is an impressive feat, but Tatum also entered the history books on a league level, becoming just the second player to record a game where they scored 50 or more points, had 10 or more rebounds, and seven or more assists.
“Jayson Tatum is only the 2nd player in NBA history to have a game of at least 50 points, 10 rebounds, 7 assists, and fewer than 2 turnovers, per @Stathead. Giannis Antetokounmpo also accomplished the feat on 3/17/19,” Taylor Snow informed fans on Twitter.
What makes this performance even more impressive is that Tatum was in a career-worst shooting slump, and had missed his previous 20 three-point shot attempts before going supernova and hitting nine of his 14 threes against the Wizards.
Celtics Star Duo Enter History Books Together
For all of the rhetoric surrounding whether Tatum and Jaylen Brown can play together, the duo just entered the history books as one of the more successful partnerships in NBA history, well, in terms of scoring exploits, at least.
According to ESPN, Brown, and Tatum are only the fourth duo in NBA history to record a 50-point, 10-rebound game in the same season. The only other pairing to achieve such a feat this century was Giannis Antetokounmpo and Khris Middleton during the 2019-20 season.
Shockingly, no other Celtics pairing have achieved this feat, not even Bird and Kevin McHale during their prime years together. For a duo who many wrote off earlier in the season, the pairing is now starting to hit their stride at the mid-way point of the season and will be looking to lead their team back up the conference standings after a difficult start to life under Ime Udoka.
Celtics Fans React to Tatum’s High Scoring Night
It’s been a tough season for Celtics fans, losing multiple games from winning positions, and watching their star players struggle to replicate previous performance levels. However, following Boston’s latest victory, fans took to Twitter to sing Tatum’s praises.
A lot of the early praise started before the game had finished, with numerous fans, analysts, and media taking aim at the small, but vocal section of the fanbase who had been calling for Brad Stevens to trade the All-Star following a rough patch of form.
“Tatum heard y’all calling him Eastbrook,” @_wolfgang wrote on Twitter in a reference to the Los Angeles Lakers Russell Westbrook’s current struggles.