Explained: Why Jayson Tatum should not face all the heat for Celtics' loss to Warriors

It's no secret that Jayson Tatum struggled in the NBA Finals. The 24-year-old, coming off winning the Larry Bird award for his conference finals performance, played well below his standards as the Boston Celtics lost three straight games against Golden State Warriors to lose in the NBA Finals in six games. 

Tatum scored 21 points on just 37% from the field and, even worse, 31% from two-point shots. Even Tatum's usually reliable free-throw shooting [career 84% shooter from the line] was down to 66%. In what could be described as an accurate summary of his entire series, Tatum scored only 2 points in the second half of Game 6 as the Celtics lost the Finals at their home court. 

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While analyst Stephen A Smith did not absolve Tatum of his poor play, he felt the reaction to his play was exaggerated. On his show, Stephen A said, "There ain't no way he should be getting all this heat, all of it, but some of it, of course. Now, did Jayson Tatum underperform in the finals? Did he disappear at times on the big stage? Without question, y'all, without a doubt."

"Shot just 31.6% on two-pointers in the series, the worst by any player with at least 75 field goal attempts in the last 60 finals. And that's bad dammit, that's bad, he also had a record of 100 turnovers this postseason, that's really bad. But there ain't no way we should be burying this kid just yet," Smith added.

Smith also talked about how even the greatest players of all time can have bad finals games citing examples of Larry Bird and Isiah Thomas. 

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"Don't forget, in Larry Bird's first Finals, he scored eight points in two different games; in Isaiah Thomas' first Finals, he had two games with just 10 points, had another game with seven turnovers, and how'd they turn out all the greats have growing pains. I'm not ready to say Jayson Tatum is a player anywhere near their level, but he's only 24, 6-9 with a j mid-range game, all that stuff; he's got time to look in the mirror and reflect on this. He can grow from it and get better," Smith said.