Jayson Tatum hit one of the biggest shots of his career with an amazingly clutch stepback 3-pointer over tight defense from Giannis.
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The Celtics started the 4th quarter off with a sizeable 17-point lead. Giannis then had 10 points within the first 4 minutes of the period. This forced the Celtics to take 2 timeouts they wouldn’t otherwise have used.
The Celtics’ lead went from 17 to 0 as the Bucks tied the game up at 109 each. Jrue Holiday then gave the Bucks a lead with 1:10 remaining in the game with a stepback 3 from the left wing. This took the scores to 120-119 in the Bucks’ favor.
Both teams traded missed buckets after that, with Theis and Jaylen Brown both missing wide open 3s for the Cs. Jeff Teague had a stupendous deflection on a fast break by Donte DiVincenzo that gave the Celtics the ball back.
Jayson Tatum hits step-back gamewinner over Giannis
With 8.9 seconds left in the game, Giannis fouled Jaylen Brown and allowed the Celtics to regroup. Their final play was just to give Tatum the ball, hope and pray he did the rest. And boy, did that pay off for them!
TATUM CLUTCH THREE 😱 pic.twitter.com/roSs3d92nT
— NBA on TNT (@NBAonTNT) December 24, 2020
Tatum danced on Giannis on the left wing, saw the opportunity to take a 3-pointer and took it, despite the Celtics only needing a 2 for the lead. The reach of Giannis is so big that Tatum, however, had to bank the ball in. It was an incredible shot in every sense of the word, and quite the opening night of the season for Boston.
The Bucks had a chance to tie the game after Giannis was fouled on an inbounds pass by Tristan Thompson with 0.4 seconds left. But the Greek Freak missed his second free throw after making one, and the shot clock expired. This gave the Cs a famous, morale-boosting win to start the season off.
