Most scrutiny of the Boston Celtics -- including the generally muted reaction to their 12-2 scorched-earth run through the remains of the East this postseason -- centers around the style and substance of their offense.
The fretting transcends the Celtics on the macro level, leading to debates about shot selection and basketball modernity, and narrows on the micro level around the foibles of Jayson Tatum.
Boston attempted 240 more 3s than any team this season. (The Dallas Mavericks, their Finals opponent, were No. 2.) When they hit something approaching 40%, they appear unbeatable. This was, after all, the No. 1 offense this season and in NBA history.
When they slump from deep, they sometimes look vulnerable -- to the degree a 64-win juggernaut can ever look vulnerable. Do they have a fallback plan? They were 26th in shots at the basket. They don't get to the line much. They are an average offensive rebounding team. They were 29th in forcing turnovers on defense, which means they are almost entirely dependent on running after rebounds to generate transition points.
For other elite teams, the fallback plan is giving the ball to their apex superstar and asking him to create magic. That is where Tatum is perhaps not quite the player his harshest critics want him to be -- the kind of tall ball handler who does everything at an elite level. He is not, in other words, the sort of all-consuming offensive force Boston is about to face in the NBA Finals: Luka Doncic. Boston for the first time in these playoffs will not enter the series with the best player.
Tatum is not far from that. He deserved his first-team All-NBA spot -- his third straight. He is between the fifth and ninth best player in the world, depending on how you rate some of his peers.
He's a good passer, not a great one. He can settle for tough contested 2-point jumpers early in the shot clock, and he doesn't quite make those shots at the rate of some of the recent greats who also rely on them -- including peak Kevin Durant and Kawhi Leonard.
To the credit of both Boston and Tatum, that has not mattered much. Tatum has been more diligent about putting his head down and getting to the rim against friendly matchups. Every Boston crunch-time loss felt like a landmark event -- a referendum on its offense -- but that was because there were so few of them. The Celtics won in blowouts. They ranked sixth in points per possession in the final five minutes of close games. Were we all looking too hard for flaws that weren't there?