How Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown impressed NBA legend Kevin McHale in playoffs – NBC Sports Boston

Kevin McHale knows what it takes to win an NBA championship.

He played 13 seasons with the Celtics from 1980-81 through 1992-93 and won three titles in Boston. He was one of the best players of his era and, in addition to having his No. 32 retired to the rafters at TD Garden, is also a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame.

McHale did an interview Monday on SiriusXM NBA Radio and talked about the evolution and growth that Celtics stars Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown showed this season, especially during Boston’s impressive playoff run that ended with an NBA Finals triumph over the Dallas Mavericks for the franchise’s 18th title .

“I thought (Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown) matured a lot,” McHale told co-hosts Frank Isola and Brian Scalabrine.

Tatum didn’t have the best shooting performance against the Mavericks in the Finals. He shot just 38.8 percent from the field and 26.3 percent from 3-point range. But the superstar forward didn’t let his poor shooting nights negatively impact other aspects of his game. Whether it was rebounding, dishing out lots of assists or playing great defense, Tatum found ways to contribute to winning. Tatum and Brown consistently made the right play, which impressed McHale.

“(Tatum) just made passes and I was like, ‘Wow, alright.’ So you’re playing the flow of the game,” McHale explained. “You’re not playing for numbers your, you’re not playing for all those things. You’re playing for the flow of the game, and the flow of the game just dictates where the ball rolls.

“And I thought Brown and Tatum finally got to the point of not playing the numbers, ‘I gotta get my numbers. I gotta do this. I gotta do that.’ They just played flow basketball. I was just so happy and proud of those guys.”