Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown Have Shown Duo Can Carry Celtics Together

Some have questioned whether or not Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown can mesh together long term with the Boston Celtics, but the duo showed what they could be capable of in an explosive win over the Sacramento Kings on Tuesday night.

Tatum and Brown combined for 15 of the their first 17 points as Boston built up a 25-point first quarter lead over Sacramento. The pair didn’t slow down and scored 66 of the team’s 128 total points while both sitting out the entire fourth quarter.

This is just one game, that’s obvious. But when Tatum and Brown both are healthy and passing the ball they can compete with anyone. They both had impressive offensive nights with Tatum netting 36 points and Brown adding 30, but they also combined for nine assists and could’ve had plenty more.

Celtics head coach Ime Udoka discussed the young duo after the big win and broke down what they bring to the team when they both are hot from the jump.

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“It sets the tone,” Udoka said. “Everybody kind of follows their lead but they’re both buy in on both ends of the court. Guarding extremely well and carrying over from last game offensively. It was great to come out and see. They are the two pillars and leaders of the team and when they come out and play with that intensity everybody seems to follow suit. So everybody has their role obviously (Robert Williams) is huge out there and (Marcus Smart) doing some of the same things but those guys really set the tone offensively and the effort they’re giving on defense and holding the team to 30 in this day and age in the NBA is obviously high-level defense in the first half.”

Nights like this it’s easy to say they should never break up. Earlier in the season that wasn’t the case as much. When they start playing heavy isolation basketball as opposed to swinging it and making the extra pass they struggle. But now the Celtics are healthy and have won seven of their last 10 games and there’s no bigger reason why than these two.

The clamor to break them up earlier in the season was premature and if they continue to play this way we likely won’t be hearing it again in the foreseeable future.