Jayson Tatum simply needed a little ‘love’ to snap out of his slump, stun the Sixers and force Game 7

Joe Mazzulla stopped Jayson Tatum on Thursday night, pulled aside the Celtics star after a timeout and delivered a message.

“I love you,” the Celtics head coach said.

The Sixers were ahead by two points, five minutes from eliminating Boston to advance to their first Eastern Conference finals appearance since 2001. Tatum, who scored 36 points in the previous game, had been largely absent on the offensive end in a must-win game. And that’s all the rookie head coach had to say?

“That’s it,” Mazzulla said after his team finished a stunning 95-86 win to force Sunday’s Game 7. “It’s a pretty powerful statement.”

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Perhaps that’s all Tatum needed to hear as he scored 12 of his 19 points after that message. Tatum entered halftime with just one point and made just 1 of his first 14 shots. But Tatum kept shooting. He knocked down four threes in the final 4 minutes, 14 seconds. A little love went a long way.

“He’s told me that before,” Tatum said. “There’s been moments throughout the season when things are going great and things aren’t going great that we just pull each other to the side. He’s done an unbelievable job in his first year and I know there’s been a lot of questions and doubts and I’ve told him a lot of times that ‘I got you. I got your back.’ We’re in this together. I love that relationship.”

It was hard to envision Boston forcing a Game 7 when Tatum missed all 10 of his first-half shots and allowed the Sixers to stay within striking distance despite a first-half slog. Contain Tatum and surely the Sixers would rally.

But he did enter the half with seven rebounds and six assists. His shot was off yet Tatum still impacted the game. His teammates, just like his coach, kept pushing him.

“I’m being transparent, that was frustrating,” Tatum said. “You want to win so bad. You want to play well and your shots not falling and things aren’t necessarily going your way. You want it so bad. You try to stay present, try to stay in the moment, try to do other things. In every time out, every huddle, my teammates kept telling me, ‘The next one is going in. Keep rebounding. Keep getting assists. Keep getting blocks. Keep impacting the game. It’s going to come.’ That was helpful.”

And the shots finally came. His first fourth-quarter three put Boston ahead by a point. Tatum’s second moved them up four. His third increased the lead to eight and his fourth gave them an 11-point advantage to seal the win. In a flash, the same player who scored one point in the first half changed the game with four shots in the final minutes.

“Just continued to tell him that he’s one of the best players in this league and he makes the big bucks for a reason,” said Marcus Smart, who scored a team-high 22 points. “Let it go. Let the game come to you. Take what they give you. Do what you do. Once he just starts to calm down, you see him get into a rhythm. I think sometimes for him and a lot of us, he gets into this mode where he thinks ‘I have to do this. I have to do that’ and be so perfect. Sometimes you have to lean on your teammates. We told him he’s not perfect. Ain’t nobody perfect.”

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Before he left the court, Tatum said in a TV interview that he’s “humbly one of the best players in the world.” He believed that even when he missed his first 10 shots.

“I truly believe that and I know that,” Tatum said when asked later about that comment. “It’s easy to tell yourself that when you have 40 points or 35. But that shows character when you can tell yourself when you just hit one shot and things aren’t going your way. You have to be the same person and have the same morals and same character when things are up and down.”

The arena was rocking in the fourth quarter when the Sixers seemed to be climbing towards a series-clinching win. They trailed Boston early, rallied in the third quarter, and just had to finish the job. The South Philly crowd came unglued. It was loud, Tatum said, and the fans were into it. Minutes later, he was walking by himself near the sideline after knocking down that game-sealing three pointer. The crowd that roared all night was silent.

“For 43 minutes, I had to hear them tell me how bad I was,” Tatum said. “So it kind of felt good to see everyone get out of their seat and leaving early.”

The Sixers, unable to stop Tatum, now have to travel to Boston for Game 7. The momentum they entered Thursday night with was extinguished by four crushing three-pointers. The TD Garden will be rocking on Sunday just as the Wells Fargo Center did on Thursday. And the guy who silenced South Philly will hear a similar message on Sunday.

“Multiple times,” Mazzulla said. “Over and over again. And the rest of the team.”

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