As Jayson Tatum arrived at TD Garden, walking through the hallway into the Celtics’ locker room and past a crowd of reporters and photographers, he couldn’t hide the smile on his face.
This was the moment he had been imagining for months.
For 298 days, Tatum had been sidelined recovering from the ruptured right Achilles tendon he suffered in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference semifinals last May. The road back was long, tedious, and often lonely. But on Friday night, he was finally ready to return to game action.
“It’s been a long time coming just to get to this point,” he said after the game. “Nights and days, I dreamed about this moment and the anticipation, the crowd. It’s been 42 and a half weeks since I played in an NBA game.”
The word that defined the night was simple: gratitude.
Tatum said it repeatedly as he reflected on his long-awaited return, emotions that were evident from the moment he stepped into the arena.
“As a basketball player, when you take an extended period of time off, you’re anxious, you want it really bad. And obviously, I wanted to hit every shot I took, but I really was just kind of like, grateful. I had a real sense of gratitude, just like being back on the floor and playing basketball again. And it just kind of brought me back to everything I’ve been through in the last 10 months, and the fact that I was able to even be out there today was like a really big win for me.”
Tatum wore a grin most of the night. It was there when he walked into the arena, ear to ear. It was there again when he stepped onto the floor for pregame warmups, a smirk spreading across his face as the crowd inside TD Garden roared. It lingered during the starting lineup introductions as he slapped hands with teammates. And it was still there after the final buzzer, when coach Joe Mazzulla greeted him at the end of the bench.
As “normal” as the night might have felt for Tatum, the appreciation for the moment never really left.
Mazzulla could see it, too.
“I thought he played with a free mind. I thought he played with a sense of gratitude, a sense of perspective,” Mazzulla said. “I thought he played with a sense of freedom, you know, I’m here, I’ve accepted this. I’m grateful for this. And how can I continue to grow and get better, but also be myself? We cannot have a lesser version of him. And so I thought we kind of saw a good balance.”
The day before his return, Tatum addressed his teammates and coaches. Standing before the group, he thanked everyone in the organization who helped him navigate the grind of the past 10 months.
“It was more just being vulnerable, showing my appreciation to the team of how they have played this season, how they’ve motivated me,” Tatum said.
“Every single day, the joy and competitive nature that they displayed, I wanted to be a part of that. And I say it all the time, going through rehab and being injured is lonely. And it’s not intentional, but there’s a lot of– I couldn’t practice for a while, I couldn’t be in the game, when they were on the court, I was in the weight room having to do my own thing. So you feel isolated in a sense. But I just expressed that being around as much as possible, going to games, being on the plane, really made me feel like I was still very much a part of the team, and how thankful I was to the group for just being themselves, that I was. Thankful to the coaches who have extended their days a lot by helping me during rehab on the court in pickup games and with my conditioning. So I really was just kind of telling everybody in the room that they all played a part in essentially getting me to this moment. And I was very thankful for that.”
The Celtics were just as grateful to have him back.
“It’s great having JT back. I commend him being able to put himself on the line a little bit to come back and be a part of something bigger,” Jayleb Brown said. “I think that is his mentality. I appreciate that. I know the organization appreciates that. Because he didn’t have to and no one put pressure on him, but he wanted to be out there, so I think it’s commendable.”
Tatum finished the night with a double-double, registering 15 points, 12 rebounds, and seven assists in 27 minutes, shaking off early rust along the way. After missing his first six shots, he found a rhythm, making five straight. The loudest sequence came with a put-back dunk followed moments later by a stepback three from the corner.
For a player returning from a devastating injury, it was about as encouraging a debut as the Celtics could have hoped for.
But for Tatum, the comeback is only the next step in the process.
“It’s a long process,” Tatum said. “It’s a very serious thing that happened that I had to overcome. And this was a huge step. I’ve still got a long way to go. But this was a really big step for me.”
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