BOSTON – For the Celtics, the intensity of a first-round series gave way to the peace of victory Tuesday night.
After closing out the tough Magic with a 120-89 Game 5 win, several Boston players seemed more relaxed than they had since the start of the series. A group of Celtics players marveled at the nutty end of the Pacers’ win. Derrick White, watching Game 5 of the Nuggets-Clippers series on a nearby television screen, responded to a Kawhi Leonard steal with a bad dad joke: “They don’t call him the Klaw for no reason folks.”
In one corner of the lighthearted locker room, Kristaps Porziņģis turned serious for a second while discussing the cold way Jayson Tatum had discarded the Magic.
“They couldn’t do anything with him,” said Porziņģis. “Honestly, they tried everything. And especially once the whistle eased up on both ends (late in the series), JT was just picking them apart. It speaks to his level. It speaks to his mindset.”
“Right now,” finished Porziņģis, “JT is turning into a killer for sure.”
ON TO THE NEXT ONE ☘️☘️ pic.twitter.com/Qmz1PDrQzc
— Boston Celtics (@celtics) April 30, 2025
In a series that forced the Celtics to shift away from their usual style, the Magic never solved the Tatum problem. He slammed the door on them with 35 points, 10 assists and eight rebounds in Game 5 after dominating crunch time of Game 4 in a 37-point-14-rebound outing.
“They were taking away a lot of stuff honestly,” said Porziņģis. “Credit to them. They were very tough. Very tough. And he was the only guy that was able to get some big buckets when we needed. They couldn’t contain him.”
By the end of Tatum’s career, most of this series will likely be forgotten. The Celtics won in five games against the Eastern Conference’s seventh seed. Though most of the games were close, none ended in particularly dramatic fashion, including a 95-93 Game 3 Orlando win that ended with an anticlimactic Boston inbounds play. The prevailing theme of the series was physicality but, as Joe Mazzulla cracked during a television interview, nobody got arrested. The bad blood between the two teams, to the extent it existed, didn’t result in anything more than a few flagrant fouls and some spicy verbal exchanges.
Individually, Tatum didn’t quite produce a trademark game like his 46-point Game 6 in Milwaukee or his 51-point Game 7 against the 76ers. For the series, he shot 44.7 percent from the field, including 36.4 percent on 3-point attempts. In the past, he has dispatched legends like Kevin Durant, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Luka Doncic. As talented as Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner are, they don’t belong anywhere near that list yet.
Because people don’t cling to memories from a series like this one, it will likely be lost to time how Tatum exhibited full control against an elite defense in Orlando’s. With strength and versatility everywhere, the Magic were built to challenge him in all the ways that used to give him problems. He still averaged 31.3 points, 11.3 rebounds and 5.3 assists per game. After suffering a severe bone bruise in Game 1, Tatum missed the first game of his playoff career in Game 2. Rejoining a rugged series that would require him to put his body back on the line, he came back with a new grab-the-wrist celebration, which he credited to Baylor Scheierman, and all the assuredness of one of the best. Tatum scored at least 35 points in each of the final three games.
“The things that impressed me most about him is that time and time again when it’s time to finish off a series and get a dub, he goes to another level,” said Al Horford. “Tonight it was impressive to see him. We get to a certain point and he knows what to do and kind of takes over.”
Not all clutch baskets come late in a game. After the Celtics fell behind by nine points late in the first quarter, Tatum calmed them by scoring eight straight points to cut the deficit to one. When Orlando created some distance again late in the second quarter, pulling ahead by six points, Tatum responded by driving to the hoop for a layup and a dunk on the Celtics’ final two possessions of the half. The buckets cut his team’s deficit to a much more manageable 49-47.
Boston landed an opening to break free when Banchero picked up his fifth foul early in the third quarter. Tatum finished the quarter with 13 points, three assists and three rebounds, helping the Celtics outscore Orlando by 23 points in the period.
“That was pretty special to see him making play after play, whether it was him shooting it, him passing it, on the defensive end, all over the place,” said Horford. “So, pretty impressive the way he closed it for us.”
Tatum helped slam the door on the Magic (Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)
Tatum didn’t do it against a pushover. Before the series, Mazzula said the Magic weren’t a typical 7-seed. The Celtics knew the Orlando defense would test them. The Magic did more than that. They dismantled Boston’s usual blueprint by taking away the 3-point arc and limiting the talented Celtics supporting cast. Much of the production Boston typically counts on disappeared. Payton Pritchard scored just three points combined over Games 3 and 4. Jrue Holiday missed the final three games of the series. Porziņģis only reached double figures in scoring twice over five games. When the series became “muddy,” as Porziņģis described it, the shift only put more of the playmaking burden on Boston’s best players.
“They were just daring me and JT, they were like, beat us one-on-one,” said Brown. “And JT accepted it, and I accepted it.”
Tatum played through contact, drawing 41 free throws over his four games, including 37 combined over the final three games of the series. Outside of a sloppy Game 3 that he finished with seven turnovers, he committed four turnovers over the rest of the series. He picked his spots against Orlando’s physicality. He stayed poised when tempers flared around him. He said he benefited from a new sense of freedom, which he has carried with him since winning last season’s championship.
“I said this season was the most relaxed and carefree that I’ve been in my career, understanding that we won last year and we accomplished the ultimate goal and you kind of got that monkey off your back,” Tatum said. “So obviously the goal is still the same this year to win and compete for a championship, but I’ve just enjoyed this season of playing carefree basketball and not having that hang over my head. It’s been fun to do.”
JT had an electric slam that gave us energy going into the 2nd half making this tonight’s @newbalancehoops Play of the Game ⚡️ pic.twitter.com/EvhQLPbbnl
— Boston Celtics (@celtics) April 30, 2025
Tatum has handed in some memorable series throughout his career. He survived a brilliant Raptors defense in the NBA bubble. He out-dueled Durant in the 2022 first round, outlasted Antetokounmpo one round later and conquered the hard-hitting Heat in the Eastern Conference Finals that same season. Though Tatum didn’t win the Eastern Conference Finals MVP or Finals MVP award en route to a championship last season, he led the Celtics in points, rebounds and assists throughout the playoffs. Even as a rookie, he carried Boston within one game of the NBA Finals, lasting long enough to shoulder bump LeBron James after dunking on the all-time great in the fourth quarter of a Game 7.
Beating the Magic in the first round won’t measure up to all those memories, but Tatum has rarely shown more poise. The Celtics, who will meet either New York or Detroit in the second round, will need more big games from him to capture a second straight title. Porziņģis saw Tatum deliver consistently throughout last season’s playoff run, but believes his teammate has leveled up. Roughing Tatum up might not work anymore. Challenging him mentally is likely to have minimal impact.
Time and experience have hardened Tatum. He said the championship has also changed him.
“It just kind of allows me to focus on the task ahead,” Tatum said. “I’m not worried about trying to prove anybody wrong or anything like that. Just understanding I know what I’m capable of, I know what we’re (capable of) when we play a certain way. We’ve shown that. So it’s all about getting to that level.”
(Photos by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)