The Real Reason Why Jayson Tatum Didn’t Win Finals MVP

Did Jayson Tatum Get Robbed?

Tatum's assignment on defense is not against the Mav's backcourt. JT was there to hold down the Mav's bigs and their lob game

"When Brown was guarding Luka, Luka simply missed shots." Sooooo good defense then?

Game 1 - Best player: Brown and Porzingis (Porzingis played injured, and I know he didn't even play the whole game but he scored 20 points in only 1 quarter.) Game 2: Brown and Holiday. Game 3: Brown. Game 4: Tatum (Whole team was trash that game I know) Game 5: Tatum. The real MVP: Celtics management for building a well rounded team where any of the starting 5 can dominate on any given day.

Celtics winning finals in '08 and '24 paying tribute to Kobe's Jersey numbers, being LAL's biggest rival AND claiming the league's franchise with the most chips is hilarious.

Jaylen Brown won because he was the most consistent and most efficient. He was the clutch guy in crucial moments. You could argue in part that besides Brown's own raw talent, he was able to score more efficiently because of Tatum's playmaking skills, in which he was able to read the defense well, draw the defenders away, making the correct plays which left Brown open for clearer/open shots. Defensively, they were both good, but Brown went the extra mile in being able to actually guard Luka and forcing many turnovers. Tatum still dominated the stats, despite taking the playmaker role and allowing his team mates to shine. He still played his role and was an integral part to the team's success. Anyone claiming Tatum was bad is just hating. In saying this, I think Brown deserved it, but if Tatum had won it instead, I'd be completely okay with it. Love both Jays.

Sports are driven by narratives, and no sport is more impacted by that than the NBA. And right now the favorite narrative surrounding the Celtics is people pretending that Tatum isn't the best player.

Tatum had nights where he didn't even reach 20 points..brown showed up every single night, while playing outstanding defense..not just on luka but he guarded whoever whenever, brown always show up.. never take nights off whereas tatum looked shaky at times

In the clip of Brown talking that you posted, he stated that his goal was to deny Luka the ball. You can't just look at Luka's shot attempts as a measure of Brown's defense. A large part of what Brown did well was denying Luka the ball and putting enough pressure on him at half court to make him pass to a teammate who then took a bad shot. I think your analysis of his defense is too narrow in scope. Additionally, Brown was more consistent than Tatum and had memorable shots to help close out games and secure wins. Not saying that Tatum didn't also deserve consideration for MVP, but chalking it up to just the voters being dumb is very poor analysis imo.

I don't think I've heard a single person say it should be Tatum. No, Brown didn't win just because defense but because he always showed up. We all watched and there was a clear separation between the two. There is a case for Jrue over Tatum as the runner up too. This just sounds like someone looking at the stat sheet and picking the highest numbers. If it was that simple we wouldn't need voting

Tatum assisted on 33% of Brown's assisted field goals this finals, the highest percentage of any duo ever. Tatum was a willing passer and facilitator, he ran the offense and took on the less 'sexy' assignment of guarding the Mavs centres and taking away the lob threat that killed every other team. It was clear how the defense was set up to neutralize Tatum and he took it in stride, the dude played exceptional unselfish basketball. Any real hooper with some IQ would see that he didn't have the big moments, but the only reason they were close enough to be in the big moments was because of his play up to that point.

I'm not saying Brown didn't deserve the award. But I hate the narrative that Brown is and has been consistently better than Tatum, especially in big games. Tatum was much better in 2023 and 2022 postseasons (except the Finals series) and even this series Brown had 3 good games and 2 bad games (had more points in game 4 but wasn't the better player). I would actually say Tatum was the more consistent player, tho JB had higher highs, but also lower lows. His defense was good but so was Tatums and I'm not talking about just defending Doncic, but eliminating Mavs short roll option.

Why y’all discrediting him let him have the trophy he was overall better

Mavs fan here. JB was more impactful defensively than JT. JB was more offensively than Jrue and White. To me, it seemed JT padded his stats when games was already out of reach.

Tatum is the best player on the team. He's been in contention for MVP for the last 3 seasons with 5 consecutive all-star appearances. While Tatum did "choke" he led the team in points, rebounds, and assists. That being said Celtics proved that the model of any championship team is having a good team, not just a duo or big three. BUT That being said - The FMVP deservedly went to Brown but it could have gone to others like Jrue or Porzingis (if he didn't get injured) But more so than that Brown was the first key piece in Boston that along with Horford that has been here the longest and created the culture for this team to win. Brown showed leadership for the Celtics and defended the best player on the Mavericks team (Luka Doncic). The Celtics as a team are exceptional so who gets the awards doesn't take away from the team's amazing success or how good Tatum is.

JT saw the bigger picture despite the constant media comparison. Whatever it takes to win even if he’s a temp role player assisting and passing.

tatum stat padding when series was already done, that's when he shows up

Brown outscored Tatum through the first 4 games. Tatum scored 10 more than Brown in game 5, but Tatum had 11 in the 4th and the Celtics were up by 19 going into that period and won by 18.

brown perform for 1-3 and tatum game 4-5. brown is straight out hunting luka on both ends to make sure luka is dread tired. and you haven't factor in that there are many moments where luka tried to create shot but end up passing because he was going nowhere, became tired( playing offense only), passive against the more physical brown. people really didn't watch the finals to know that luka is hunting tatum out on defense, and to our surprise tatum is doing so badly defensively against luka. so yeah brown is fmvp. btw did people really forget tatum tried to statspadd in 4th quarter in pacers and mavs series against benchwarmers to padd his stats? lmao

Brown showed up in big moments. Tatum had better stats sure… despite the fact he shot terribly. However if u watched u would know brown played better