INSIDE TD GARDEN\u2019S home locker room, Boston Celtics forward Jayson Tatum was asked about the frustrations he experienced during his nearly 300-day journey back from a torn Achilles.<\/p>\n
\u201cI ain\u2019t know how this s— was going to be,\u201d Tatum told reporters Sunday after Boston\u2019s loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves. \u201cIt\u2019s tough. In the moment, you try not to think about it. You just want to be Jayson Tatum and feel like yourself again.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not Superman, so it\u2019s obviously going to take some time.\u201d<\/p>\n
After missing the first 62 games, Tatum returned March 6 to a standing ovation from the Boston crowd. And at times, including during that season debut against the Dallas Mavericks that featured 15 points and 12 rebounds in 27 minutes, Tatum has shown flashes of the All-NBA game that has made the 28-year-old wing one of the league\u2019s top 10 players.<\/p>\n
Tatum has scored in double figures in all eight games he has played — he reached at least 20 points in five of them — with four double-doubles. But those numbers cover up the understandable growing pains of Boston easing back its superstar in the middle of a playoff push.<\/p>\n
The Celtics, whose retooled roster entered this season with the franchise\u2019s lowest expectations in a decade, have ripped off a memorable campaign that has them in second place in the Eastern Conference and its betting favorite to reach the Finals. (Wednesday night, Boston hosts the only team in the league with better NBA title odds, the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder.)<\/p>\n
Returning to those heights will likely require Tatum to progress to his pre-injury form. And as the franchise navigates the push and pull of a nearly unprecedented situation, Tatum and the Celtics represent perhaps the biggest wild card of the 2026 playoffs.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe question is, do they have enough time to figure it out?\u201d a Western Conference scout told ESPN. \u201c[Eleven more] regular-season games isn\u2019t a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
BOSTON\u2019S SEASON WAS projected to be a gap year, as Tatum\u2019s injury and offseason departures of Jrue Holiday, Kristaps Porzingis, Al Horford and Luke Kornet left the team without much of its 2024 championship core. The Celtics never took that approach, and Tatum\u2019s potential return hung over Boston\u2019s surprise run to the East\u2019s top tier.<\/p>\n
Even going back to Tatum\u2019s surgery — performed the morning after the Game 4 loss to the New York Knicks to avoid swelling and speed up his recovery by a month — there was a belief that Tatum could indeed return at some point during the 2025-26 season.<\/p>\n
\u201c[Because of] the seriousness in which you go get surgery,\u201d Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla said before Tatum\u2019s return game. \u201cThe seriousness in which you start attacking the rehab process, not just from a physical, but a mental and emotional standpoint. …<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew he was going to do everything he could.\u201d<\/p>\n
As Tatum kept passing checkpoints, the focus shifted to how he would look when he made his eventual return. Once he did, the conversation shifted again.<\/p>\n
Could Tatum possibly regain his superstar form in time for a deep playoff run?<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just taking it day by day,\u201d Tatum said Sunday. \u201cI have probably the worst injury you could have. I came back in 10 months.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted to be perfect and,\u201d Tatum continued, snapping his fingers, \u201c[return to] first-team All-NBA Jayson like that. I didn\u2019t rush the rehab process, so I can\u2019t rush this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tatum\u2019s first eight games have featured plenty of peaks and valleys, with two numbers that stand out immediately: a 30.8% usage rate and a heavy reliance on 3-pointers.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would be better if he could get off the ball a little bit more,\u201d an East assistant coach said. \u201cBut I don\u2019t expect that will happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tatum\u2019s usage, while in line with his past five seasons, doesn\u2019t resemble a player easing back into play. \u201cThat\u2019s too high,\u201d another West scout said flatly.<\/p>\n
\u201cA big part of this is wanting to come back and be what you were before,\u201d an assistant coach whose team has faced Tatum this season said. \u201cIt is hard to be like, \u2018I\u2019m back, but I\u2019m only able to play for X number of minutes.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Additionally, Tatum has taken 75 of his 139 shots (53.9%) from behind the arc.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo me, the [nearly nine] 3s a game tell the story.\u201d the assistant coach said. \u201cHe\u2019s still super smart, and he can shoot it. But he doesn\u2019t seem to trust [his leg yet], or he can\u2019t go by guys yet, so he\u2019s hunting his jumper more than ever.\u201d<\/p>\n
But simply looking at Tatum\u2019s early shooting numbers, including 38.8% overall and 29.3% from 3 in the games he\u2019s played, doesn\u2019t properly measure his potential impact. While scoring often gets the most attention — heading into 2025-26, Tatum averaged more than 26 points in five straight seasons — he has added plenty of value in other areas throughout his career.<\/p>\n
Despite a lack of explosiveness, Tatum is averaging a career-high 8.9 rebounds, which has been critical to an undersized Celtics roster after it lost big men in Porzingis, Horford and Kornet last summer. Tatum has always been a strong team and help defender and has averaged 1.1 steals this season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think they\u2019re the best team in the East,\u201d another assistant coach who has seen the Celtics since Tatum\u2019s return said. \u201cI don\u2019t think him being back helps now, but I think it will help in the playoffs.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe just doesn\u2019t look like he has confidence in that leg yet. [But] if you let him shoot spot-up jumpers and rhythm looks, he\u2019ll be good.\u201d<\/p>\n
THE CHALLENGE FACING Tatum and the Celtics is balancing the natural desire to rush back into a first-option role and the reality that the best immediate path forward is Tatum slotting into a secondary role behind MVP contender Jaylen Brown.<\/p>\n
\u201c[Tatum] looks like most guys who are coming off an Achilles tear: not great. That\u2019s why coming back now is so hard. There\u2019s a lot of downside, but not a lot of upside,\u201d an East scout said, adding that they believe the Celtics are giving Tatum as much latitude as he needs to get back up to speed.<\/p>\n
As an example of how Boston could optimize Tatum going forward, the first West scout pointed to the transformation that\u2019s been happening to the Los Angeles Lakers offense in recent weeks, as LeBron James has taken on a new role as secondary option behind Luka Doncic.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo their credit, and to his credit, [LeBron is] playing the right way,\u201d the scout said. \u201cHe\u2019s a basketball savant, and he\u2019s figuring out how to fill in the gaps and they are unstoppable right now. You have the growing pains with working Tatum back in, and you just have to give it time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tatum has largely taken Jordan Walsh\u2019s minutes in Boston\u2019s rotation. The energetic third-year forward had been averaging 17.2 minutes but has not played in Boston\u2019s past five games. Walsh\u2019s 5.3 points per game this season fall well short of what even a rusty Tatum can provide — much less a full-strength version.<\/p>\n
Naturally, it\u2019s going to take time for Tatum to return to his peak self — something that every source asked about his return believes will eventually happen. Whether that\u2019s during Boston\u2019s upcoming playoff run is arguably one of the biggest questions facing the conference.<\/p>\n
Last year\u2019s conference champion, the Indiana Pacers, are in the middle of a true gap year after Tyrese Haliburton suffered an Achilles tear in Game 7 of the NBA Finals. The Detroit Pistons have had a remarkable season atop the conference, but questions swirl about their ability to score in the playoffs. They haven\u2019t won a playoff series since 2008, and their superstar, Cade Cunningham, is sidelined with a collapsed lung.<\/p>\n
The Knicks and Cleveland Cavaliers, meanwhile, entered the season as the co-favorites to win the conference but have had plenty of false starts that have cast doubt on either\u2019s ability to break through. And the other teams in the East that were once believed to have a chance to truly make noise — such as the Orlando Magic, Atlanta Hawks and Philadelphia 76ers — have fallen short.<\/p>\n
The Celtics, though, have always believed they can win it all. That was Mazzulla\u2019s message during training camp, and it has remained the team\u2019s belief now that Tatum has returned. Not only is Boston trying to get back to the NBA Finals, but they\u2019re also trying to guide their star through an extremely difficult process of acclimating to high-level basketball on the fly — and with the playoffs looming.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe thing it reminds me of, in a way, is the [No. ] 45 Jordan year,\u201d the East assistant coach said, referring to when Michael Jordan came back from playing baseball in March of the 1994-95 season. \u201cHe\u2019s working his way back into shape midseason, getting up to speed, and we\u2019ll see if he can.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"INSIDE TD GARDEN\u2019S home locker room, Boston Celtics forward Jayson Tatum was asked about the frustrations he experienced…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":559677,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[98723,49,48,97072,459,82],"class_list":["post-559676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-boston-celtics-sports-basketball-team-team-statscom-2","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-jayson-tatum-sports-basketball-player-player-statscom-937647","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=559676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559676\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/559677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=559676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=559676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=559676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}