NBA FINALS: CELTICS VS. WARRIORS

June 13, 2022

Jayson Tatum

Boston Celtics

Game 5: Postgame

Warriors 104, Celtics 94

Q. Ime talked about fatigue possibly setting in. Seemed like a couple of your shots started to fall short. Were you feeling the fatigue in the fourth quarter?

JAYSON TATUM: I had a couple shots that were short. I just got to not fade as much. Use my legs. I mean, you're going to be a little more tired in the fourth than you are in the first quarter.

You got to get your legs a little more under you on a couple of those shots. Give yourself a chance.

Q. What did you think of Wiggins' performance tonight? With as much defensive attention that Steph Curry demands, does that open things up for his teammates like that?

JAYSON TATUM: Yeah. You know, I give all those guys credit, everybody. For them to play well tonight, they were the better team tonight. You got to give them credit. Get some rest and get ready for the next one.

Q. Your thoughts on the turnovers, 18? You are 0-7 in the playoffs when you have 16 or more.

JAYSON TATUM: Yeah, we got to be better. We're hard to beat when we don't turn the ball over. Clearly, we're easy to beat when we do turn the ball over.

Q. Jaylen was just talking about the inner strength of this club. He said it from Game 1 of the postseason getting ready for it. How much do you rely on that now? How confident are you that you can get back here for a Game 7?

JAYSON TATUM: You know, I've said it before: You better be confident, right? We ain't got to win two in one day. We just got to win one game on Thursday.

We've been in this situation before. So it's not over. Got to win on Thursday. That's all we got to worry about right now.

Q. About four and a half minutes left in the game, you tried walking to the bench. Draymond got into your face. What was the interaction there?

JAYSON TATUM: In the NBA after timeouts, guys try to get shots up. They didn't want me to shoot the ball. I just said, (expletive) it. I just took the ball with me to the timeout and I kept the ball the whole time. They didn't say nothing. They just didn't want me to shoot the ball.

Q. Why the lethargic start in the biggest game of your career, all your guys' career? You come back for the third quarter. Then what happened in the early fourth quarter where everything stopped again?

JAYSON TATUM: Yeah, that's on us. We got to obviously start better, not dig ourselves a hole. Gave ourselves a chance. We played extremely well in that third quarter. We were up six or seven at one point.

Then just trying to sustain that level of play. We got to do it more often than not throughout the course of the game to give ourselves a chance.

Q. Ime talked about the Warriors' defensive physicality taking you out of sets or spots. How could you adjust to that moving forward in the series? Just running your stuff better? Making tweaks with spacing?

JAYSON TATUM: Yeah, just being a little more precise, more detailed about what we trying to do. Not just run through the motions. Set screens, hit guys, kind of own your space with things like that, especially on the offensive end.

Q. Was your slow start strategic? You didn't get up a shot until two minutes to go in the first quarter. Was that strategic? Are you happy with the shots that you're getting?

JAYSON TATUM: Strategic? No. Just kind of how the game was going.

Am I happy with the shots I'm getting? Yeah. I just got to make more of them.

Q. It seemed like starting with the Poole buzzer-beater there was a lot of extended conversation with the refs. Seems like you guys got really caught up in some of the officiating there. Can you explain what was going on there? How much did that impact you in the fourth quarter?

JAYSON TATUM: I mean, you saw it. I wasn't in all of those conversations. I didn't hear everything that was talked about.

But in those situations, especially on the road, regardless if we feel like calls are going our way or not, just in those moments we just got to be better not letting distractions, things like that, distract us. Down one going into the fourth quarter, just got to focus on what's important at the time.

That's on all of us. We'll regroup and bounce back. I'm sure of it.