{"id":523893,"date":"2026-03-07T04:03:18","date_gmt":"2026-03-07T04:03:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/523893\/"},"modified":"2026-03-07T04:03:18","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T04:03:18","slug":"celtics-jayson-tatum-achilles-starts-vs-mavs-in-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/523893\/","title":{"rendered":"Celtics&#8217; Jayson Tatum (Achilles) starts vs. Mavs in return"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>BOSTON &#8212; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com.au\/nba\/team\/_\/name\/bos\/boston-celtics\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Boston Celtics<\/a> star <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/player\/_\/id\/4065648\/jayson-tatum\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jayson Tatum<\/a>&#8216;s belated birthday present to himself was a return to the game that was abruptly taken away from him last season.<\/p>\n<p>Tatum started the Celtics&#8217; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com.au\/nba\/boxscore\/_\/gameId\/401810763\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">120-100 home win<\/a> over the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com.au\/nba\/team\/_\/name\/dal\/dallas-mavericks\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Dallas Mavericks<\/a> on Friday, marking his season debut almost 10 months after having surgery to repair a ruptured right Achilles tendon.<\/p>\n<p>Tatum played 27 minutes and scored 15 points.<\/p>\n<p>Editor&#8217;s Picks<a name=\"&amp;lpos=story:editorspicks:inline:1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com.au\/nba\/story\/_\/id\/48112573\/how-jayson-tatum-improbable-return-boston-celtics-change-nba-title-race\" class=\"img-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1772856198_282_r1623752_1296x1296_1-1.jpg&#038;w=130&#038;h=130&#038;scale=crop&#038;location=center.jpeg\" width=\"65\" height=\"65\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s been a long journey. And the culmination of a new journey begins today,&#8221; coach Joe Mazzulla said during his pregame news conference.<\/p>\n<p>The typical rehabilitation window to return to basketball action following Achilles tendon surgery is between nine and 12 months.<\/p>\n<p>Tatum, who had surgery on May 13, made his return to the court after 298 days.<\/p>\n<p>The Associated Press contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BOSTON &#8212; Boston Celtics star Jayson Tatum&#8216;s belated birthday present to himself was a return to the game&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":523894,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-523893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523893","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=523893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/523894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=523893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=523893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=523893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}