Following Boston’s 105-103 loss at Orlando, Gordon Hayward explained what happened on the final play in which Kyrie Irving was clearly bothered by Hayward’s decision on the in-bounds pass he threw to Jayson Tatum.
Hayward said that there were multiple options he could have considered on that particular play call.
“JT (Jayson Tatum) on the curl was the first option I looked at,” Hayward told reporters following the loss. “It didn’t go in.”
Before Tatum’s potential game-tying shot was launched, cameras panned on Irving who was visibly bothered by Hayward’s decision to pass the ball to Tatum.
“He (Irving) would have liked for me to pass to Al (Horford) and have him (Irving) cut off of it,” Hayward said. “It’s late clock and we’ve worked on that play before and I’ve seen JT hit that in practice countless times so it was a good shot.”
Al Horford acknowledged that getting the ball to him was among the options that Hayward was considering on the in-bounds play.
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“It’s tough when you’re taking the ball out; you have to make quick decisions,” Horford told reporters after the game. “It has multiple options, multiple layers.”
As far as the final shot taken by Tatum, Horford had no issue with it.
“I felt we got a really good look,” Horford said. “It just didn’t fall.”
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