Jayson Tatum's Recent Offensive Explosion Makes Celtics Dangerous Dark Horse

There was a time this season where it looked like the Celtics were going to underperform once again and lose in the play-in tournament. Then the Celtics turned into a defensive juggernaut and didn’t allow anybody to score on them. They have the best rating in the league since the start of 2022. Underneath their great defense, Jayson Tatum has transformed into the star we’ve expected him to become. 

During the month of March, Tatum has been outstanding. He’s averaging over 30 points per game on 53/45/90 splits and contributing five assists per game. The defense is driving the Celtics higher up the Eastern Conference ladder, but Tatum’s offense is going to give Boston a leg to stand on come playoff time.

WynnBET currently has the Celtics’ odds to win it all at +1200, which is seventh on the odds list. They are fifth in the Eastern Conference, and that makes them the perfect dark horse pick. 

Boston is tied with Philadelphia and Milwaukee in the standings, with all three being 2.5 games behind the Heat for the No. 1 seed. The Celtics have the best defense out of all of them and have a scorer that can go toe-to-toe with the rest of the conference. 

Tatum has already led this team to a conference finals appearance and they have several players from that core on this year’s team. 

If Tatum can keep this pace up, or even drop down four points per game (still putting him at 30 PPG), then I don’t see why a shot on the Celtics wouldn’t be worth it. 

Philadelphia has its issues, Milwaukee hasn’t been dominant throughout the season, Brooklyn is never fully together and Miami doesn’t have a high-end scorer like Tatum. There is a path for the Celtics to make it out the East. It starts with their defense, but ends in Tatum’s scoring.