Jason Tatum of the Celtics was ejected for the first time…
Jayson Tatum had a discouraging evening at Madison Square Garden.
In Monday’s 109-94 loss against the Knicks, the Boston Celtics star forward only managed to make six of his eight field goals tries, missed eight of his three-point attempts, and finished with just 14 points.
When Tatum’s shots weren’t falling on a particular night, combine that with an inconsistent performance from the officials, and things in New York finally got out of hand.
In the final seconds of Monday’s game, Tatum was taken out of the game for the first time in his career. He also received a second technical foul for arguing with officials about what he believed to be a missed call.
With slightly more than four minutes remaining in regulation, Tatum started arguing with the officials on a play in which he believed he had been fouled while trying to make a three-point shot.
Tatum gave the referees a hard time when Josh Hart of New York made a corner three during the Knicks’ next possession, which ultimately resulted in his elimination from the game.
Tatum did manage to improve his stat line with nine assists and seven rebounds, but on a night when not much seemed to go the C’s way, his shooting slump and four turnovers hurt Boston.
In the defeat, Boston shot just 9 for 42 (21.4%) from 3-point range as a team, going more than 22 minutes without a three-pointer in the first half.
Since returning from the NBA All-Star Game last week, Tatum (1-for-9 from 3-point range) has been stuck in an offensive rut. For the second game in a row on Monday, the MVP contender was restricted to fewer than 20 points.
Even in his first game back from Salt Lake City, Tatum only made nine of his twenty-five shots in last Thursday’s overtime victory over the Pacers for Boston.
However, when questioned about what caused his dismissal at his postgame news conference, Boston’s best player kept things light.
Later, Tatum joked on Twitter that the refs’ failure to call his potentially game-winning foul on LeBron James last month was karma.