Jayson Tatum Has Learned He Doesn’t Need “Luka Magic” to Win

Getty Images/Ringer illustration Two years ago, Tatum and the Celtics coughed up the Finals by forcing the issue. Now they're letting the series come to them—and picking the Mavericks apart in the process. When he's at his best, his sharpest, his uncanniest, Luka Doncic defies physics and reason—hitting shots no one else would attempt, threading passes no one else would see, to teammates who didn't even know they were open. "Luka Magic," they call it. So when Doncic drove hard into the paint late in the third quarter Sunday, then flipped a looping, no-look pass, you just sort of assumed that something special would happen. Jayson Tatum had cut off Doncic's path to the hoop. Kristaps Porzingis was converging. So Doncic pirouetted and zinged the ball over his right shoulder, toward an awaiting P.J. Washington on the opposite side of the court. But on this night, in Game 2 of the NBA Finals, the magic fizzled at the worst times. Jaylen Brown leaped to snag the pass, then fired ahead to a sprinting Jrue Holiday for an easy dunk, short-circuiting the Dallas Mavericks' comeback in the third quarter. It was not the defining play of the night but was maybe the most symbolic, as the...