Sunday night couldn’t have gone much better for The Jays at the 73rd NBA All-Star game.
Not only did their Eastern Conference team win 211-186 while setting a new scoring record, but one of them also challenged for the game’s MVP award, each of them scored 20-plus points, and Tatum checked off a bucket-list item by meeting Larry Bird.
One year after Tatum won the All-Star game MVP award with a record of 55 points, it was Brown’s turn to challenge for the award. He finished second on the East in scoring with 36 points, which trailed only MVP winner Damian Lillard’s 39 on the team. Brown’s effort marked the second consecutive year in which he’s scored at least 35 points during the All-Star game.
Tatum’s night was a bit quieter, to his admission. He played only 21-plus minutes, with only about eight of them coming during the second half while scoring 20 points on 8-for-13 shooting.
“It was cool to take a back seat this year and kinda chill, and get to enjoy the show a little bit,” he told the media after the contest.
That being said, Tatum did initiate what eventually became the highest-scoring performance in All-Star game history by the East. He was the man who scored the first points of the night by either team. He dropped in a catch-and-shoot 3-pointer from the right corner just 21 seconds into the contest off a dish from Giannis Antetokounmpo. Tatum swished the shot home despite the fact that he has only attempted 15 shots from that area of the court all season long for Boston.
Tatum started the game alongside Antetokounmpo, Lillard, Tyrese Haliburton, and Bam Adebayo, but he was soon afforded the opportunity to share the court with his true teammate, Brown. Such an opportunity didn’t exist last year, as Tatum and Brown were on opposing teams under the captain-chosen roster rules. This year, as the game returned to an East-vs-West format, they were teammates.
Brown checked into the game to join Tatum with 6:00 left in the first quarter. The duo went on to share the court for a total of seven minutes and one second of the game from there on out.
There were some fun moments during those shared minutes, such as Brown assisting on Tatum’s 3-pointer late in the second quarter, and Brown grabbing an offensive rebound midway through the third quarter and kicking out to Tatum for another 3-point attempt. Perhaps their top overlapping moment, however, came late in the first quarter, when they weren’t on the court together.
Tatum agreed to pop a headset on from the bench at the end of the first quarter to chop it up with the TNT crew that was calling the game. He put the headset on with 2:22 left in the quarter and was on the call for exactly one minute of game action. During that short period of time, Brown managed to score five points by dropping in a driving layup in transition and also canning a 3-pointer. Tatum was rooting for him the whole way through, and each player made it clear after the game that they were happy to be wearing the same jersey this time around.
“It was cool being on the same team as JT this time,” Brown said. “We got the win, and we had fun.”
Added Tatum, “It's much better being on the same team as JB. It’s what I’m used to. I mean we’ve competed against each other in practice for seven years now, so kinda tired of doing that.”
Tatum also got to take in the show as Brown went off during the second half. Brown scored 11 points during the third quarter and 13 during the fourth quarter to make a late run at the game’s MVP award. In the end, however, it wasn’t enough to catch up to Lillard or Indiana’s hometown star, Haliburton, who finished second in MVP voting after logging 32 points, seven rebounds, and six assists.
The other highlight of the night for the Celtics came during pregame when Tatum got his first opportunity to meet Bird in a one-on-one setting. The brief meeting occurred shortly before tip-off when Tatum and Celtics Vice President of Communications Taylor Kielpinski-Rogers found Bird along the sideline. Needless to say, the moment is one that will stick with Tatum forever.
“I never met Larry Bird. I’ve never been in the same room as him. As crazy as that sounds, it’s never worked out,” Tatum said. “So Taylor, our PR girl, saw him before (the game) sitting on the sideline and she grabbed me and was like, ‘He’s sitting over there.’ And I got a chance to go meet him and tell him how much of an honor it was to meet him, and he told me he was looking forward to meeting me. So that was crazy to hear him say that.”
From a Celtics perspective, that meeting was an icing-on-the-cake moment for this All-Star game. Tatum and Brown got the win together, Brown showed out and got into the MVP conversation, and two of the greatest wings in Celtics history shook hands for the very first time. It doesn’t get much better than that.