Testing on Tuesday confirmed what anybody who noticed Jayson Tatum fall to the ground throughout Monday’s Boston Celtics loss to the New York Knicks already feared: Tatum suffered a rupture of his proper Achilles tendon late within the fourth quarter, sidelining him not just for the rest of this postseason but in addition jeopardizing his availability for the 2025-26 season.
Given Tatum’s significance to the defending champions, as their main scorer and a three-time All-NBA first workforce choose (with a fourth probably on the best way when this yr’s groups are introduced quickly), his harm is among the most consequential in NBA historical past.
The ramifications begin with Boston’s skill to come back again from a 3-1 deficit towards the Knicks, who at the moment are favored on this collection, however go nicely past that to how the Celtics will deal with subsequent season.
Let us take a look at how Boston may play with out Tatum, plus the historical past of Achilles accidents within the NBA and its implications for the Celtics.
When may we see Tatum return?
No NBA participant since Jose Juan Barea in 2019 has returned earlier than 10½ months after an Achilles rupture, suggesting the Celtics ought to plan on Tatum lacking the complete 2025-26 common season. A postseason return is extra lifelike, however there’s principally no precedent for that.
The one NBA participant I may discover who returned from a seasonlong harm within the playoffs was Larry Krystkowiak with the Milwaukee Bucks in 1991, when he got here again from an ACL restore to play three video games and whole two factors. Though Krystkowiak was a starter earlier than the harm, the stakes weren’t fairly the identical as with an All-NBA first teamer.
Postseason returns had been mentioned when each Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson suffered accidents within the 2019 NBA Finals, however neither got here to cross. The Golden State Warriors’ 2019-20 season was lengthy over by the point Thompson was cleared — he later suffered a subsequent Achilles rupture in a pickup recreation that offseason. Durant, in the meantime, opted to not be a part of the Brooklyn Nets for the bubble restart in the summertime of 2020 and returned a yr and a half after his Achilles rupture initially of the 2020-21 marketing campaign.
Based mostly on that historical past, Boston may wish to strategy 2025-26 as if Tatum will not play in any respect, even within the playoffs. That dramatically modifications the pondering for a workforce that has gained 15 playoff collection within the seven years since drafting Tatum No. 3 in 2018.
Second-apron squeeze
As ESPN’s Brian Windhorst not too long ago detailed, the Celtics are getting into a precarious monetary scenario. With Tatum’s supermax extension — the biggest in NBA historical past thus far, supplanting teammate Jaylen Brown’s — scheduled to kick in subsequent summer time, Boston is greater than $40 million over the 2025-26 luxurious tax line. That does not rely veteran stalwart Al Horford, who shall be an unrestricted free agent at age 39.
The looming tax invoice for the Celtics, plus restrictions on groups that exceed the second luxurious tax apron, all the time figured to drive troublesome choices. Tatum’s harm accelerates them. In spite of everything, paying nicely north of $200 million in luxurious taxes for a possible championship workforce is one factor. Doing so for a workforce whose skill to advance is unsure is one other.
Age is one other consideration. If Boston’s subsequent title window shifts from 2026 to 2027, that impacts the enthusiastic about veteran gamers, most notably Jrue Vacation. By the 2026-27 season, Vacation shall be 36 years outdated. The Celtics may be higher off sending Vacation to a different contender whereas his worth stays sturdy in a transfer that would each cut back their payroll and get them youthful on the perimeter at the price of downgrading defensively.
Conversely, Tatum’s absence may forestall Boston from contemplating the nuclear choice of buying and selling Brown. The long-term monetary problem for the Celtics is having two gamers in Brown and Tatum who mixed make greater than 60% of the wage cap by means of 2028-29. It is not going to be attainable for Boston to keep up the depth that has been a trademark now that its two most necessary gamers are getting paid like the celebrities they’re.
In Tatum’s absence, nevertheless, Brown’s skill to create his personal pictures will change into paramount. They had been the lone two Celtics rotation gamers to be assisted on lower than 59% of their discipline targets this season –Tatum at 39% and Brown at 46%.
Expectations for Tatum
Durant’s return will undoubtedly be the comparability for Tatum. Regardless of struggling his Achilles harm at 30, three years older than Tatum, Durant returned because the dominant drive he was earlier than the harm and stays an All-Star six years faraway from it.
The instance of Durant exhibits it is attainable to keep away from a significant lack of efficiency after an Achilles rupture. Maybe the most definitely influence for Tatum shall be compromising his sturdiness. Together with the playoffs, nobody has performed extra NBA video games than Tatum since he was drafted, and this season’s eight video games missed resulting from harm — six of them in March and April, with Boston coasting to the No. 2 seed — had been a profession excessive.
Each time Tatum is again on the courtroom, he’ll presumably be restricted from taking part in back-to-back video games for a time period and can in all probability have his minutes monitored as nicely. That would make it troublesome for Tatum so as to add extra All-NBA first-team appearances, even when his productiveness doesn’t undergo.
Sometimes, multiskilled wings have carried out one of the best getting back from Achilles accidents. Past Durant, that group consists of Thompson and Wesley Matthews, who was again on the courtroom lower than eight months after his harm in 2015 and continued to play within the NBA by means of age 37.
There is no assure Tatum will be a part of that group, moderately than be a part of extra cautionary examples like DeMarcus Cousins and John Wall. However there’s additionally no motive to contemplate an Achilles rupture the top of Tatum’s skill to play at a excessive stage.
How can the Celtics come again on this collection?
First, they should overcome the shock of seeing their star participant helped to the locker room in a wheelchair. Tatum’s harm was disheartening, however his Boston teammates can have a few days to course of it by the point the workforce tries to remain alive in Sport 5 at house on Wednesday night time.
Even earlier than Tatum’s harm, the Celtics had been in an enormous gap after falling down 3-1 within the collection. Traditionally, 3-1 comebacks have been way more possible for the upper seed, as Boston is. Nonetheless, meaning groups have rallied to win 8% of the time in best-of-seven collection since 1984 (going 5-58), in contrast with simply 1% of the time in collection the place the decrease seed trails 3-1 (2-141).
Past that, Tatum was the most important motive the Celtics had been in Sport 4 regardless of giving up 70 factors within the second half. Tatum scored 42 factors in 40 minutes, tying probably the most profession 40-point playoff video games for any Boston participant, earlier than happening.
In Tatum’s absence, the Celtics might want to depend on a protection that held the Knicks to a mixed 184 factors in Video games 2 and three. Maintaining Jalen Brunson out of the paint needs to be the highest precedence. Brunson’s 18 factors within the paint on Monday almost matched his whole of twenty-two over the primary three video games of the collection.
As a workforce, New York had 64 factors within the paint in Sport 4, the third most by a workforce in any playoff recreation this season, in line with NBA Superior Stats. The Celtics may change Tatum by placing extra dimension on the courtroom, defending the rim on the expense of their very own capturing. If Boston can get the Knicks’ offense again within the mud, there’s sufficient scoring for the Celtics to win three consecutive video games and pull off an unbelievable comeback.
Nonetheless, the mix of shedding the sport and Tatum on Monday has taken Boston from having one of the best odds to win the Japanese Convention at ESPN BET getting into Sport 4 to final of the 4 remaining groups now.
