Pelicans Forward Had Perfect Reaction to Celtics' Jayson Tatum Hitting Game-Winning Shot

The Celtics broke the Pelicans' hearts with a last-second shot to win the game.

Jan 31, 2025; New Orleans, Louisiana, USA; Boston Celtics forward Jayson Tatum (0) makes a basket to give them the lead against the New Orleans Pelicans with .2 seconds left on the clock during the second half at Smoothie King Center. Mandatory Credit: Stephen Lew-Imagn Images / Stephen Lew-Imagn Images

The Boston Celtics have been struggling with some consistent play recently. They have started to play better, winning three of their last four games.

Boston is trying to maintain their lead over the Knicks for the second spot in the Eastern Conference. Right now, they have one-and-a-half game lead over New York for that spot.

Part of that is because of their victory over the New Orleans Pelicans on Friday night. They were able to beat them 118-116 thanks to a game-winning shot by Jayson Tatum.

It certainly helped the Celtics that Dejounte Murray tore his Achilles in the first half, so they didn't have him to worry about. Still, the game was close until the very end.

Read more: Pelicans All-Star Dejounte Murray Has Season-Ending Injury vs Celtics

Tatum has been the one player on the Celtics who has been consistent this season. He continues to put up some big numbers, just as he did last year.

His game-winning shot was a thing of beauty. He hit it over two Pelicans defenders, and they couldn't have played any better defense.

One Pelicans player had the perfect reaction to Tatum draining the shot to beat them.

Herb Jones’ reaction to the Jayson Tatum game-winner was hilarious

You know a shot is nasty when an opposing player reacts like that pic.twitter.com/tOKEewUKAe

— Jack Simone (@JackSimoneNBA) February 1, 2025

Herb Jones knew how great of a shot that was. Tatum had the perfect move set up to get himself in position to hit that shot and executed it perfectly.

The Celtics are hoping that this shot can help them build momentum. They likely won't be active at the trade deadline, so they have to figure it out with the group that they have.

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If Tatum can continue to make shots like this, they have a chance to win a lot of games as the season winds down. Of course, one could argue they shouldn't have needed a last-second shot to beat one of the worst teams in the NBA.

As the Celtics continue to gear up for another deep run, Tatum is going to be the driving force of their success. This team will go as far as he and Jaylen Brown can take them.

So far this season, Tatum is averaging 26.7 points, 8.9 rebounds, and 5.5 assists per game.

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