Duke basketball: Jayson Tatum struggles against Bucks in restart opener

Former Duke basketball star Jayson Tatum struggled in the Boston Celtics restart opener against the Milwaukee Bucks on Friday evening.

It wasn’t the best start for Jayson Tatum and the Boston Celtics in its first game in the NBA’s restated season on Friday night.

The Celtics were pinned against the top team in the Eastern Conference in the Milwaukee Bucks and a 15-2 run to start the game for the Bucks set the tone despite the Celtics’ efforts to come back and take the lead in the second half for a brief period of time.

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However, the play of Boston’s All-Star was one of the contributing reasons why the Celtics weren’t able to hold onto its small third quarter lead.

Jayson Tatum was only able to score five points on 2-of-18 shooting and two of those points, and one field goal, came because he was the closest player to his basket following an inadvertent tip-in from Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo into the wrong basket.

Despite his poor shooting performance, the former Duke Blue Devil was able to impact the game in other ways as he accumulated seven rebounds, three assists, two steals, and a block in the Celtics’ 119-112 defeat.

The loss does not hurt Boston in the short term as the team still holds the No. 3 seed in the East, two and a half games behind the Toronto Raptors for the No. 2 seed and two games ahead of the Miami Heat, who hold the No. 4 seed.

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Jayson Tatum and the Boston Celtics still have seven games left in the NBA’s restarted regular season before the playoffs begin and they will face a desperate Portland Trail Blazers team who is battling for the No. 8 seed in the Western Conference.

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Boston and Portland will tipoff at 3:30pm EST on Sunday, August 2 and the game can be viewed on ABC.

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