Tim Bontemps
Multiple Authors
INSIDE TD GARDEN’S residence locker room, Boston Celtics ahead Jayson Tatum was requested about the frustrations he skilled throughout his almost 300-day journey again from a torn Achilles.
“I ain’t know how this s— was going to be,” Tatum instructed reporters Sunday after Boston’s loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves. “It’s tough. In the moment, you try not to think about it. You just want to be Jayson Tatum and feel like yourself again.
“I’m not Superman, so it is clearly going to take a while.”
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’s top 10 players.
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.
The Celtics, whose retooled roster entered this season with the franchise’s lowest expectations in a decade, have ripped off a memorable marketing campaign that has them in second place in the Eastern Conference and its betting favourite to succeed in the Finals. (Wednesday night, Boston hosts the solely group in the league with higher NBA title odds, the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder.)
Returning to these heights will probably require Tatum to progress to his pre-injury kind. And as the franchise navigates the push and pull of an almost unprecedented state of affairs, Tatum and the Celtics characterize maybe the largest wild card of the 2026 playoffs.
“The question is, do they have enough time to figure it out?” a Western Conference scout instructed ESPN. “[Eleven more] regular-season games isn’t a lot.”
BOSTON’S SEASON WAS projected to be a spot 12 months, as Tatum’s damage and offseason departures of Jrue Holiday, Kristaps Porzingis, Al Horford and Luke Kornet left the group with out a lot of its 2024 championship core. The Celtics never took that approach, and Tatum’s potential return hung over Boston’s shock run to the East’s high tier.
Even going again to Tatum’s surgical procedure — carried out the morning after the Game 4 loss to the New York Knicks to keep away from swelling and pace up his restoration by a month — there was a perception that Tatum may certainly return sooner or later throughout the 2025-26 season.
“[Because of] the seriousness in which you go get surgery,” Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla mentioned earlier than Tatum’s return recreation. “The seriousness in which you start attacking the rehab process, not just from a physical, but a mental and emotional standpoint. …
“I knew he was going to do every thing he may.”
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.
Could Tatum possibly regain his superstar form in time for a deep playoff run?
“I’m simply taking it day-to-day,” Tatum said Sunday. “I’ve most likely the worst damage you would have. I got here again in 10 months.
“I wanted to be perfect and,” Tatum continued, snapping his fingers, “[return to] first-team All-NBA Jayson like that. I didn’t rush the rehab process, so I can’t rush this.”
Tatum’s first eight video games have featured loads of peaks and valleys, with two numbers that stand out instantly: a 30.8% utilization price and a heavy reliance on 3-pointers.
“It would be better if he could get off the ball a little bit more,” an East assistant coach mentioned. “But I don’t expect that will happen.”
Tatum’s utilization, whereas in line along with his previous 5 seasons, would not resemble a participant easing again into play. “That’s too high,” one other West scout mentioned flatly.
“A big part of this is wanting to come back and be what you were before,” an assistant coach whose group has confronted Tatum this season mentioned. “It is hard to be like, ‘I’m back, but I’m only able to play for X number of minutes.'”
Additionally, Tatum has taken 75 of his 139 photographs (53.9%) from behind the arc.
“To me, the [nearly nine] 3s a game tell the story.” the assistant coach mentioned. “He’s still super smart, and he can shoot it. But he doesn’t seem to trust [his leg yet], or he can’t go by guys yet, so he’s hunting his jumper more than ever.”
But merely taking a look at Tatum’s early capturing numbers, together with 38.8% total and 29.3% from 3 in the video games he is performed, would not correctly measure his potential affect. While scoring usually will get the most consideration — heading into 2025-26, Tatum averaged greater than 26 factors in 5 straight seasons — he has added loads of worth in different areas all through his profession.
Despite a scarcity of explosiveness, Tatum is averaging a career-high 8.9 rebounds, which has been crucial to an undersized Celtics roster after it misplaced huge males in Porzingis, Horford and Kornet final summer time. Tatum has all the time been a powerful group and assist defender and has averaged 1.1 steals this season.
“I think they’re the best team in the East,” one other assistant coach who has seen the Celtics since Tatum’s return mentioned. “I don’t think him being back helps now, but I think it will help in the playoffs.
“He simply would not appear like he has confidence in that leg but. [But] should you let him shoot spot-up jumpers and rhythm seems, he’ll be good.”
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.
“[Tatum] seems like most guys who are coming off an Achilles tear: not nice. That’s why coming again now’s so arduous. There’s loads of draw back, however not loads of upside,” 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.
As an example of how Boston could optimize Tatum going forward, the first West scout pointed to the transformation that’s been happening to the Los Angeles Lakers offense in current weeks, as LeBron James has taken on a brand new position as secondary possibility behind Luka Doncic.
“To their credit score, and to his credit score, [LeBron is] taking part in the proper approach,” the scout said. “He’s a basketball savant, and he is determining how you can fill in the gaps and so they are unstoppable proper now. You have the rising pains with working Tatum again in, and also you simply have to present it time.”
Tatum has largely taken Jordan Walsh‘s minutes in Boston’s rotation. The energetic third-year ahead had been averaging 17.2 minutes however has not performed in Boston’s previous 5 video games. Walsh’s 5.3 factors per recreation this season fall nicely in need of what even a rusty Tatum can present — a lot much less a full-strength model.
Naturally, it may take time for Tatum to return to his peak self — one thing that each supply requested about his return believes will ultimately occur. Whether that is throughout Boston’s upcoming playoff run is arguably certainly one of the largest questions going through the convention.
Last 12 months’s convention champion, the Indiana Pacers, are in the center of a real hole 12 months after Tyrese Haliburton suffered an Achilles tear in Game 7 of the NBA Finals. The Detroit Pistons have had a outstanding season atop the convention, however questions swirl about their potential to attain in the playoffs. They have not gained a playoff sequence since 2008, and their celebrity, Cade Cunningham, is sidelined with a collapsed lung.
The Knicks and Cleveland Cavaliers, in the meantime, entered the season as the co-favorites to win the convention however have had loads of false begins which have forged doubt on both’s potential to interrupt by way of. And the different groups in the East that had been as soon as believed to have an opportunity to actually make noise — akin to the Orlando Magic, Atlanta Hawks and Philadelphia 76ers — have fallen brief.
The Celtics, although, have all the time believed they’ll win all of it. That was Mazzulla’s message throughout coaching camp, and it has remained the group’s perception now that Tatum has returned. Not solely is Boston making an attempt to get again to the NBA Finals, however they’re additionally making an attempt to information their star by way of a particularly troublesome means of acclimating to high-level basketball on the fly — and with the playoffs looming.
“The thing it reminds me of, in a way, is the [No. ] 45 Jordan year,” the East assistant coach mentioned, referring to when Michael Jordan got here again from taking part in baseball in March of the 1994-95 season. “He’s working his way back into shape midseason, getting up to speed, and we’ll see if he can.”
