{"id":129912,"date":"2025-03-21T13:47:07","date_gmt":"2025-03-21T17:47:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=129912"},"modified":"2025-03-21T13:47:07","modified_gmt":"2025-03-21T17:47:07","slug":"nets-jordi-fernadez-praises-celtics-jayson-tatum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/03\/21\/nets-jordi-fernadez-praises-celtics-jayson-tatum\/","title":{"rendered":"Nets’ Jordi Fernandez Praises Celtics Star’s Undefined Talent"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the <\/span>greatest<\/span> advantages the\u00a0<\/span>Boston Celtics<\/span><\/a>\u00a0possess is <\/span>strength<\/span> of roster and, more specifically, the<\/span> strength of their starting lineup. Celtics star\u00a0<\/span>Jayson Tatum<\/span><\/a>\u00a0is the clear-cut number-one option and best player\u00a0<\/span>Boston<\/span><\/a>\u00a0boasts.\u00a0<\/span>Jaylen Brown<\/span><\/a>\u00a0is right behind him; however, if you want to title him as 1B to Tatum’s 1A, it’s hard to argue against that. Brown is <\/span>more than<\/span> capable of carrying the C’s when Tatum is out of the lineup, and that’s the kicker of it all. Boston’s starting five are so good. When one of them sits or is sidelined for whatever reason, the remaining four starters are all top-tier players, and it doesn’t hinder the team. It all starts with Tatum, though. It’s almost impossible to stop him. Brooklyn Nets head coach Jordi Fernandez knows this all too well. He spoke about Tatum’s impact leading up to a back-to-back series Brooklyn had with Boston earlier this week.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nets HC Jordi Fernandez Praises Celtics Star Undefined Talent<\/h2>\n

Boston Celtics Star Jayson Tatum Leaves Brooklyn Nets Head Coach with No Answers; ‘He’s Too Good’<\/h3>\n

Fernandez came out on the losing end of the back-to-back, with his Nets dropping both games 115-113 and 104-96. Interestingly enough, the second more considerable loss came when Boston sat both Tatum and Brown. The Celtics won handily with\u00a0<\/span>Kristaps Porzi\u0146\u0123is<\/span><\/a>,\u00a0<\/span>Jrue Holiday<\/span><\/a>, and\u00a0<\/span>Derrick White<\/span><\/a>\u00a0remaining in the starting lineup. Before the tip-off of game one,\u00a0<\/span>Fernandez was posed with the question of how to guard and defend a player like Tatum<\/span><\/a>. To his credit, Fernandez answered with the best response, which is often the best way to answer a question: “I don’t know.”<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know how to guard him. He\u2019s too good. I just try to live with things. If one thing works, then try to stay with it, try to have a feel for it,” <\/em>Fernandez explained.\u00a0\u201cOur guys do a good job to try to do whatever the adjustment, whatever the defense is at the time to do it together. It\u2019s not just one guy guarding, and I think that\u2019s extremely important.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Few players in the league are virtually impossible to guard, no matter what defensive schemes, designs, analytics, or coverages you throw at them.\u00a0<\/span>Luka Don\u010di\u0107<\/span><\/a>\u00a0is a perfect example of this. Sometimes, the best way to do things is to defend collectively. It’s what\u00a0<\/span>Los Angeles Lakers<\/span><\/a>\u00a0head coach JJ Redick attempted in the Lakers win over the Denver Nuggets earlier in the month. Redick doesn’t have someone who can guard\u00a0<\/span>Nikola Joki\u0107<\/span><\/a>\u00a0straight up, so he planned to swarm Joki\u0107 with two, sometimes three, defenders, and it worked. Fernandez seems to have the same thinking pattern. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work, and he knows that players like Tatum can be an exception.<\/span><\/p>\n

A Roster Unmatched<\/h3>\n

What makes Boston so deadly is they have top-tier skill at each starting position. Tatum, Brown, Holiday, Porzi\u0146\u0123is, and White are unquestionably the league’s top starting lineup. Their bench depth is also one of the best groups in the league. Take one starter out for rest or injury, and veteran\u00a0<\/span>Al Horford<\/span><\/a> or\u00a0<\/span>Payton Pritchard<\/span><\/a> slide in. In any case, the Celtics are still likely to come out on top. Coming up with a game plan for Boston must be one of the more challenging jobs in the league a coaching staff can take on. It all starts with Tatum\u2014the head of the snake, and he’s just too good.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a9 David Butler II-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the greatest advantages the\u00a0Boston Celtics\u00a0possess is strength of roster and, more specifically, the strength of their starting lineup. Celtics star\u00a0Jayson Tatum\u00a0is the clear-cut number-one option and best player\u00a0Boston\u00a0boasts.\u00a0Jaylen Brown\u00a0is right behind him; however, if you want to title him as 1B to Tatum’s 1A, it’s hard to argue against that. Brown is more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5081,"featured_media":129914,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1608,62],"tags":[250,1090,4405,798,239,138,1133,72,2614],"class_list":["post-129912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celtics","category-basketball","category-nba","tag-al-horford","tag-derrick-white","tag-jalen-brown","tag-jayson-tatum","tag-jrue-holiday","tag-kristaps-porzingis","tag-luka-doncic","tag-nikola-jokic","tag-payton-pritchard"],"modified_by":"Aaron J Zacharias","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5081"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129912"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129912\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":129932,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129912\/revisions\/129932"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}