There was some concern about Boston Celtics star Jayson Tatum’s jump shot over the summer. He shot 28.3% from 3-point range in the playoffs. He missed every jumper he took at the Olympics and sat for two of Team USA’s six games in Paris, leading many observers to believe his shot had something to do with it.
Asked about his errant jumper at media day, Tatum conceded that he had made some slight adjustments to his mechanics, though he explained that these kinds of minor tweaks are common practice for him.
“Been working with my trainer a lot recently in the last few weeks,” he said last month. “A few mechanical things — pick-up points, hand placement, getting lower, keeping my shoulders forward and things like that. … There were some things I could have fixed, but in the midst of the playoffs, trying to manage your rest, it’s a little tougher. I was still playing well. I just wasn’t shooting the ball as well as I would have liked. And, obviously, we were winning, so it wasn’t the time or the place to try to fix things in that moment.”
If we learned anything in the opening minutes of Boston’s first game, it was that Tatum’s shot is far from broken (if it ever was). He attempted six 3s in the opening quarter and made four of them, staking the Celtics to a 43-24 lead in the opening frame. This after he shot 41.4% from distance in the preseason.
