While fans of the Boston Celtics were irked by their favorite team’s 118-94 blowout Game 2 loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers at TD Garden in Game 2 of their Eastern Conference semifinals series, star Boston forward Jayson Tatum was less visibly perturbed. Speaking to the media postgame, the St. Louis native shared his level of concern with the loss, saying, “Nobody was in there defeated (or) deflated.”
“We never want to lose, especially in the playoffs,” he added. “A lot of things we can learn from it, and we get it. The world thinks we’re never supposed to lose, we’re going to win every game by 25, and it’s not going to be like that every time.”
This has been a familiar refrain from Boston’s players this season, and for the most part, they have been right. But margins of error shrink considerably in the postseason as teams advance, and it is unclear if the urgency of the situation is truly registering with the Celtics.
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“We don’t expect it to be easy,” said Tatum. “This is a good team we’re playing. It’s the second round of the playoffs.”
The Duke alum tells us that “we’ve bounced back plenty of times,” pointing to the team losing a mere 18 games this past regular season. “I like to think that we respond pretty well the few times that we did lose.”
For the sake of the fans, let’s hope Tatum is right.
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