Jayson Tatum has found it tough to get past Draymond Green in the Finals, but the latter wants to make JT’s life difficult off the court as well.
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Draymond Green and Jayson Tatum were under much scrutiny coming into Game 5 of the 2022 NBA Finals. While Tatum was under the hammer for his inefficiency, Green was criticized for talking way more than he was performing in the first four games.
The Warriors point-forward had more fouls than points scored in the Finals before the Monday night action and as a result, had to take the bench in Game 1 and Game 3 after fouling out.
Both the players performed quite better than their previous performances, with Green starting the game with dominance but taking the back seat later on and helping them in his typical fashion, putting up 8 points, 8 rebounds, 6 assists, and a steal.
Whereas Tatum came up with 27 points on 10/20 shooting, with 10 rebounds and 4 assists. But neither Draymond could avoid fouling out again nor JT was able to lead his team to a much-needed victory.
But both of them had an incident in the game, which was quite animated at the end of Celtics forward, who generally keeps his calm all the time.
Jayson Tatum stood up to the bully Draymond Green even though he had to take the basketball and go off the court like a kid
The Celtics, after making a solid comeback in the game in the 3rd quarter, found themselves down 91-79 with under five minutes to go in the final quarter. That’s when Celtics coach Ime Udoka called a timeout, and Tatum, who was dribbling the ball then, declined to give the ball up despite the play being stopped.
Warriors players, though, were persistent in taking it away, as they have tried doing against many of their opponents these Playoffs. Gary Payton II and Draymond Green were at it this time, but the Celtics star was persistent.
He had this to say after the 104-94 loss.
Emotionally or logically, it wasn’t fair to rip the ball off from a 24-year-old MVP of a team you’re on the verge of defeating in the playoffs while holding that (pretty efficient) guy to just 30% shooting while guarding him.
But we know Draymond, the man, has no boundaries regarding competitiveness. And Tatum wasn’t giving it up to the bully this time, even if it meant that he’d have to behave like a little kid.
