It may have taken until the very last millisecond of overtime, but it counts as a win all the same for the Boston Celtics. The Celtics were pushed to the brink by the winless Brooklyn Nets, but Jayson Tatum put his foot down and decided that Boston wasn't about to suffer a crushing loss at home — sending the Nets home heartbroken with a game-winning buzzer-beater to give the Cs a 125-124 victory.
Everyone in TD Garden knew that the Celtics were going to find Tatum on that final possession. But Boston drew up an incredible play to get Nets rookie Mikel Brown Jr. switched onto Tatum, and Tatum swished home a jumper from right around the foul line to give Boston their third win of the season.
It is the responsibility of the team's best player to get the job done, and Paul George knows that Tatum is never the type to shy away from the responsibilities of an MVP-level player.
“We got the ball to the MVP and he took us home,” George said in his postgame presser, via Justin Turpin of WEEI.
Article Continues Below“We got the ball to the MVP and he took us home.”
Paul George speaks on the Jayson Tatum game-winner 🗣️
(via @JustinmTurpin) pic.twitter.com/3GKOwVVW6p
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) October 28, 2026
Indeed, Tatum was on a heater on Tuesday, and it would have been a shame had the Celtics actually lost that game. Tatum finished the night with 40 points on 10-of-20 shooting from the field and 18-of-22 shooting from the charity stripe, a performance that's befitting of an MVP-level player like him.
If the Celtics lost, they wouldn't have had anyone to blame but themselves anyway. They missed free throws in regulation that kept the door ajar for the Nets, which Brown then pried open with a game-tying triple to send the game to overtime.
If it weren't for some mental lapses from the Nets, the Celtics may have fallen to 2-2 on the season. But a win is a win, and there was no better way for them to squeak out a victory than by giving the ball to their superstar and letting him do his thing.