No (questionably) funny preambles come to mind, so let’s just dig into this Celtics defeat:
1. The Tatum-sized elephant not in the room.
The ability of the Boston Celtics to weather the storms of players’ varied health setbacks has been a defining characteristic of the Brad Stevens era. But Jayson Tatum is Jayson Tatum, easily the most talented player the team’s ever had in this period. (Aside from maybe Kyrie Irving for 60 glorious games in the 2017-18 honeymoon season, and Tatum will be better than that before long.) And the various successful versions of the Hospital Celtics have almost always included Jayson Tatum.