Jayson Tatum came back a different player
A third of his shots are threes, down from half. He’s at the line 10 times a game, and the centers he finds are under the rim.
Nov. 8, 2026Through the games of Nov. 6, his first eight games and Boston’s first nine.
Jayson Tatum made a 17 foot turnaround jumper at the buzzer to beat the Brooklyn Nets in overtime on October 27th. Boston had let a four point lead slip in the last 4.2 seconds of regulation and trailed 124-119 with two minutes left in overtime. The shot was his 40th point of a 125-124 win, and he took 22 free throws, the most of his career. He made 18.
Afterward he said he was “really starting to feel like my old self.” Eight games into his first full season since he tore his Achilles tendon in the 2025 playoffs, he’s averaging 27.9 points, 8.0 assists and 10.0 free throw attempts. The assists and the free throws are the most of his career. Boston is 7-2, and 6-2 with him.
He got there by changing how he plays. When he came back last March, for 16 games, half of his shots were threes, as in his last season before the injury. This season about a third are. He’s playing closer to the basket, and so are the teammates he finds.
The three point shot is where he’s been more selective. Threes were 49.7% of his shots in 2024-25, his last full season before the injury, and 49.8% in his 16 games after it. This season they’re 35.7%, the lowest share in the five seasons the site’s play by play covers. The stepback three, 11.6% of his shots in 2024-25, is down to 3.8%. He has taken six.
Tatum’s shots went inside. Layups are 29.9% of his shots, up from 21.6% in 2024-25, and pullup twos are 12.7%, up from 3.5%. He’s averaging 2.8 post touches a game, the most of his career, and 2.9 touches in the paint, his most since 2022-23. The shot that beat Brooklyn was one of those twos, a turnaround from 17 feet. Four nights earlier he scored eight points in the last 1:24 of a 107-103 win over the Knicks, on a 19 foot turnaround fadeaway, an 18 foot jumper and a 26 foot pullup three.
| His shots | 2023-24 | 2024-25 | 2025-26, after the injury | 2026-27 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Threes, share of shots | 42.7% | 49.7% | 49.8% | 35.7% |
| Stepback threes | 10.4% | 11.6% | 7.0% | 3.8% |
| Layups | 24.8% | 21.6% | 27.2% | 29.9% |
| Pullup twos | 3.6% | 3.5% | 5.2% | 12.7% |
| Fadeaways | 8.0% | 8.7% | 9.1% | 10.2% |
| Dunks a game | 1.16 | 1.17 | 0.25 | 0.38 |
| Free throws for every shot | 0.35 | 0.30 | 0.28 | 0.51 |
He gets to the rim about as often as he did in 2023-24, but he doesn’t dunk. He has three dunks in eight games, after more than one a game in each of the three seasons before the injury. His layups are going in 55.3% of the time, a little below the league’s 56.3% and well below his own 60.1% in 2024-25.
What he gets instead is fouled. He has drawn 30 shooting fouls in eight games. He gets 0.51 free throws for every shot from the field. His best season before this was 0.40, in 2022-23, and of the 40 players taking 15 or more shots a game, only Deni Avdija gets more.
It started after the first game. In the opener, a 121-113 loss to Detroit, he took 23 shots and one free throw. In the seven games since, he has taken 79 and made 70.
More of his baskets are being set up for him. He has made 68, and 32 came off a pass, 47.1%. In 2024-25 it was 39.1%. The change is at the rim: 58% of his made layups were assisted, after 31% in 2024-25. Derrick White has set up 12 of his baskets, more than anyone, including the winner against Brooklyn.
He’s moving more to get them. He’s averaging 4.36 miles an hour on offense, 92% of the league’s average. In the two seasons before the injury he was at 86% and 85%, among the five slowest players on offense in the league. It isn’t more running: 12.1% of his shots have come in transition, about what they were before.
He’s averaging 8.0 assists. His best season before this was 6.0. He’s passing less, 50.3 times a game after 57.5 in 2024-25, but 15.9% of his passes become assists, after 10.4%.
Where those passes go has changed the most. In 2023-24 the two players he set up most were centers who shot threes: Kristaps Porziņģis, who took 39.0% of his shots from three, and Al Horford, who took 61.6%. Threes from outside the corners were 36% of the baskets Tatum set up, and 1.7 a game came at the rim.
This season it’s 3.8 a game at the rim, 30 of his 64 assists. Six have been alley oops, four of them to Mitchell Robinson. He threw 13 in all of 2023-24. Robinson and Neemias Queta have taken three threes between them this season, and 14 of the 15 baskets they’ve scored off his passes came at the rim. Most of the rest go to wings: Sam Hauser has made eight threes off his passes, and Paul George, who came from Philadelphia in July, has made five threes and finished five layups.
| The baskets he set up | 2023-24 | 2024-25 | 2026-27 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Assists a game | 4.9 | 6.0 | 8.0 |
| At the rim | 34% | 28% | 47% |
| Corner threes | 17% | 14% | 20% |
| Other threes | 36% | 45% | 27% |
| Other twos | 13% | 13% | 6% |
| Alley oops a game | 0.18 | 0.26 | 0.75 |
| Set up most | Porziņģis 77, Holiday 59, Horford 53 | White 69, Brown 65, Porziņģis 62 | George 11, Queta 10, Hauser 9 |
Boston has moved with him. The Celtics were last in the league in free throws for every shot in each of the last two seasons. They’re ninth now, with 26.4 attempts a game, up from 18.7, and Tatum takes a third of them. With him on the floor they get 0.32 free throws for every shot. Without him it’s 0.22, about where they were last season.
His teammates are closer to the basket too. With him on the floor, they take 30.7% of their shots within four feet of the rim. The same players take 22.3% without him. Derrick White has taken 12 of his 46 shots there with Tatum and two of 46 without.
They’re 7-2 with the fifth best offense and the fifth best defense in the league.
Before the injury, Tatum’s game ran through the three point line. Half of his shots came from behind it, and the centers he assisted also shot the three. Now a third of his shots are threes, he’s at the line 10 times a game, and the centers he finds are under the rim.
Start with Boston’s starters, then put Tatum on the court with any of his teammates and see what that group has done together this season.
Build a lineup
George, Tatum, White, Robinson and Walsh: 47 minutes together, +21.8 per 100 possessions, likely +14.0.
George, Tatum, White, Robinson and Walsh
How these were counted
Everything runs through Boston’s first nine games, Tatum’s first eight, through Nov. 6. Along with the numbers below, it comes from watching those games.
Shot kinds are the NBA’s own descriptions of each shot, from the site’s play by play, which covers 2022-23 onward. Layups include driving, cutting and running layups. At the rim is layups, dunks, alley oops and putbacks. Other threes include pullups and stepbacks.
Fouls drawn and free throw trips come from this season’s play by play. A shooter fouled on a miss isn’t charged with a shot, so the play by play doesn’t say what the shot was.
Touches, post and paint touches, passes, assists per pass and speed are the NBA’s tracking numbers. Speed is his average miles an hour on offense against the league average weighted by minutes, for players with 500 or more minutes in a full season and 100 this season.
On and off numbers, and shots within four feet of the rim, come from the site’s five player lineup data, with garbage time left out. Team ranks use box score possessions and every minute.
Free throws for every shot is free throw attempts divided by shots from the field.