BOSTON — There aren’t many people who will ever get Grant Williams and LeBron James confused, but that didn’t stop the Celtics forward from doing his best impersonation of the 18-time All-Star on Wednesday night.
No, Williams did not get up in front of a microphone and pretend to be someone else. He’s well past that point in his career. Instead, he made an outlandish prediction that nearly came to light.
“When I was in layup lines today, the birthday-boy Grant (Williams) did his best LeBron impersonation,” Tatum admitted postgame. “He told me I was gonna score 50 (points) today. So I just kept that in the back of my mind and kept shooting throughout the game.
“… Everybody has seen the meme of LeBron predicting things in the future. Grant did that today. He literally told me that in the layup line.”
The meme in question relates back to a revelation, where folks on NBA Twitter discovered a variety of clips and quotes where James claimed he had predicted something in advance of it happening. Some instances include him predicting Kobe Bryant’s 81-point game and Migos becoming a famous hip-hop group — both of which are either hard to believe or were disproven.
So no, Tatum didn’t end up getting to the ever-elusive 50-point mark Wednesday. Instead, he settled for 49 in the Celtics’ win over the Miami Heat at TD Garden. It was another MVP-level performance for the young superstar in a campaign where he’s starting to set himself up to run away from the pack. Continued wins should help him do that, and maybe even bring interim coach Joe Mazzulla along with him to the awards line.
