Did Jayson Tatum Truly Get Crossed Up By Sam Dekker The Other Night? An Investigative Report

I’ll be honest, I left this play out of the blog the other night because I wanted to ignore the play even happened. What am I talking about? This play right here

Look, this is the NBA, guys get crossed up all the time. Having said that, you can’t be getting crossed up by Sam Dekker. No disrespect to Dekker, but when I think of his game, I think more shooting and such and less ankle breaking handles. Obviously this was not the best look when it happened live, and the inevitable dragging on the internet ensued. But the reason I didn’t include it in my recap blog was I wasn’t totally positive he actually got crossed up. Tatum certainly doesn’t either

First off, not nice of Tatum to clown on Terry’s Puma’s. He’s just trying to help make the brand legit now that they are back in the basketball game. Now in order to evaluate this play honestly, some admissions have to be made. Jayson Tatum has been crossed before, in fact multiple times. There was this play against the Pelicans

and then this play from last year’s summer league by Donovan Mitchell (sneaky more of a push but the courts will allow it)

So I won’t sit here and tell you there’s no possible way Tatum could ever get dropped. He’s so goddamn long he has legs sort of like a baby deer. Things can happen. However, to truly evaluate this you have to go to the tape, and this is what the footage shows.

As you can see, when the play starts Jayson has decent position fighting around the screen

As Dekker begins to make his move, you can see no signs to stepping on shoes in sight

However, as he begins the crossover you see Terry’s foot get a little bit closer

to the point where we absolutely, 100%, without a doubt have contact

This then causes Tatum to slip right as Dekker completes his crossover, making it look like he just shook the shit out of Tatum

But as any non-biased impartial observer will tell you, this was clearly a case of Tatum truly stepping on Terry’s foot, which caused him to lose balance and fall to the ground. Embarrassing? Sure, but simply an accident. Certainly not as bad as legitimately getting crossed up by Sam Dekker.

So did Jayson Tatum get crossed up the other night? The evidence points to no, no he did not.

The defense rests, thank you.

P.S.

His defense, much like everyone else on the Celts roster was still dogshit though. That, not even the footage can spin.