BOSTON (AP) \u2014 Boston All-Star Jayson Tatum took a big step toward returning from his torn Achilles tendon when he was assigned to practice with the Maine Celtics, the organization’s G-League team, on Monday.<\/p>\n
The organization said he would immediately be recalled to the Boston Celtics and continue to rehab the injury he sustained in the Eastern Conference semifinals last spring. <\/p>\n
Tatum led the Celtics to their title in 2024 and had them on track for a repeat before the injury, which was expected to keep him out for about a year. <\/p>\n
Boston entered Monday night with the third-best record in the Eastern Conference, and a Tatum return could help propel the team to a long playoff run. Tatum expressed doubts last month whether he might upset the team’s chemistry by returning, but Brad Stevens, the team’s president of basketball operations, said that was not a concern.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, any team with Jayson Tatum\u2019s going to be better,\u201d Stevens said on Friday. \u201cIf he needs it, I\u2019ll tell him every day. Because every team — all 30 of us — would be way, way better with him on the team.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stevens said Tatum still has \u201ca ways to go,\u201d and the team isn\u2019t going to rush him.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s hit a lot of the thresholds, he\u2019s doing more and more and will continue to do more and more,\u201d Stevens said. \u201cThere\u2019s no pressure from us. But there\u2019s also not going to be any of us saying, \u2018Well, why don\u2019t you just take another week?\u2019 It\u2019s going to be: When he\u2019s ready, he\u2019s ready.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/NBA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BOSTON (AP) \u2014 Boston All-Star Jayson Tatum took a big step toward returning from his torn Achilles tendon…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":469451,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[229080,3979,64,63,590,85],"class_list":["post-469450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ap-sports","tag-associated-press","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=469450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/469451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}