It can’t be easy to lose the NBA Finals.
And for Boston Celtics star Jayson Tatum, falling to the Warriors in June made him downright morose.
“You know, those three, four days afterward, I was miserable,” Tatum told Bleacher Report’s Taylor Rooks during a live interview on Sunday. “I really, really was. And it took some time to kind of get out of that funk and just kind of enjoy my life, enjoy being around my son and my family.”
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Golden State earned its fourth NBA championship in eight seasons after defeating the Celtics in a hard-fought, six-game series. Tatum averaged 21.5 points, 7.0 assists and 6.8 rebounds across those six games, but it wasn’t enough to overcome Finals MVP Steph Curry and the rest of the Warriors’ championship-experienced roster.
Tatum has yet to hoist the Larry O’Brien trophy since Boston drafted him in 2017, and falling just short of the accomplishment this past season took its toll on him.
“I feel like sometimes I come off so laid back that I don’t know if people understand how much I invest into this game, how much I care, how much I work because I’m not the loudest or may [not] show everything,” Tatum told Rooks. “But [losing] was just so tough because I literally gave everything that I had. And to feel like I ran out, that I didn’t have anything left to give, and we were so close.
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“I didn’t have an appetite. I didn’t want to talk to anybody. I didn’t want to go anywhere.”
Though Tatum said he stayed at home for a few days after the Finals loss, it’s clear that his family -- and especially his son Deuce -- were able to pull him out of his funk.
And any hard feelings toward the Warriors didn’t follow him far into the offseason, as he attended Draymond Green’s wedding last Monday night along with other NBA stars.
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But Golden State can rest assured Tatum is preparing for their next meeting in his quest to win his first ring.
The defending NBA champions will host the Celtics at Chase Center on Dec. 10 for a regular-season Finals rematch, and the fireworks are sure to fly.
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