Jayson Tatum Reacts To Celtics Game 7 vs Heat | 2023 ECF

Jason, can you take us through the first play, what happened with your ankle, and how did that impact you for the rest of the game? I saw the video, and I saw it after the game that I came down on my ankle. And it's tough, because it kind of impacted me the rest of the night. I swelled up, and it was just frustrating that I was kind of like a shell of myself. It's tough to move. It was just frustrating, especially that ---- happened on the first play. And what happened with the team effort? It seemed like you guys couldn't get shots down. They did. You guys got discouraged. What happened out there tonight as a whole? Yeah, I think just not shooting the ball well had an effect on us throughout the game, and it just kind of snowballed. Jason, with the sprained ankle, game seven, no margin for error, is there a tendency to kind of look back at maybe the game two, where you guys had an opportunity to win and maybe missed opportunities in the past that wouldn't have put you in a position like this? I mean, you can't go through life talking about what you could have and you should have done. Shit happens, and the past is the past. And we fought like hell to give ourself a chance today, just not the outcome that we anticipated. And losing at home, again, you had the loss at home last year and three losses at home in this series. Can you explain what it was about home that made things so difficult? It's not difficult to play at home. We didn't play well the first two games at home this series, and they did. And they played well tonight, and we didn't. You don't want it to be like that. It's called home-court advantage for a reason. But it's not difficult to play here. We got great fans. I wish the outcome was different at home games for us. Jason, you and Jalen have obviously been through it all together since day one. How important is it for this team to keep him here long-term as he goes into extension tucks this summer? It's extremely important. He's one of the best players in this league, plays both ends of the ball, and still relatively young. And he's accomplished a lot so far in his career. So I think it's extremely important. Jason, can you describe just how much your mobility was limited by the ankle and what it took for you mentally to grind through it and still play those minutes and do it in a significant way? I don't want nobody to feel bad for me. Unfortunately, injuries are a part of this game. I've been fortunate enough up until this point. I've never missed games. I've played 95% of the games since I've been in the league. I've topped two in minutes since I've been in the league. It just was unfortunate to fall out of the night on the first play of the game. Something I was trying to battle through throughout the game. Jason, you guys have talked so much about how you need to be a defense-first team over the years. And this year, there's kind of a balance of being offense and defense. So when you guys locked into defense later in the series, you came back. And then tonight, you guys couldn't get stops. And you weren't really healthy enough to run the offense. And it kind of fell apart. So what do you think needs to change about the way you guys, I guess, visualize how you emphasize defense to turn into offense? I think we're at our best when I think these last three games, besides tonight, when we really honed in on the defensive end, we showed how special and good that we can be as a unit. And we didn't shoot the ball necessarily well. But that's part of being in this league. Offense fluctuates through from night to night. But defense can always, for the most part, maintain. Even when you miss shots, you still got to lock in on the defensive end. And even tonight, they had 50 points at halftime. Obviously, the game got away at the end. But defense is obviously extremely important. Jason, you guys, you've had a lot of success with this group in the last few years. This year in particular, you guys were considered title favorites coming out of the first round here. Does this make it sting a little bit more, knowing the golden opportunity you guys had here after coming so close last season? Yeah, it's tough. It's as simple as stuff. You made it to the conference finals again. So close to getting back to the finals and giving ourself another chance. Yeah, I mean, as you would expect, it's tough to lose. Along those same lines, you guys have come close now a number of times. What needs to change for you, for the team, for the organization to kind of get over the hump? To win a championship? Yeah. I mean, we've shown that we can get there. I mean, ----, we get to the conference finals. It's my fourth time in six years. And we've been to the finals once. And we had a special opportunity this year. We just fell a little bit short. It's not like we're not capable. We don't have the talent. We do. It just didn't go our way this year. Then where do you think it went wrong this year to kind of let that opportunity go away? Yeah, that's a great question. We didn't play well enough to win this series for the majority of it. Bad third quarter of the first game, and bad fourth quarter of the second game. They beat us the third game. We didn't play well at all. Won three in a row, and then tonight was just tough. So we just didn't play well enough to win this series. Dan, last question on the right. Jason, with that said, how would you look at Joe, who had a tough start, obviously, thrown into that position as the interim. And then you guys grew as a team. How would you look at what Joe was able to do with you guys all season, and as you went along, grow with him? I mean, it was his first year. We got to the conference finals game seven. I don't think people give him less enough credit that two days before the season start, we find out we don't have a new coach. We didn't have Rob the first 25, 30 games of the season. We never got a chance to have Gallo, and we got a new coach one day before media day. That was an adjustment, and we all figured it out. Obviously, we went to win the championship. Didn't happen, but I think Joe did a great job. We won 50-some-odd games. We got to game seven, conference finals. Obviously, everybody can be better, learn from this. But I think Joe did a great job this year. Thank you.