The Celtics have been preparing to enter this season without Jayson Tatum.

Now, the status of his longtime co-star is up in the air.

Jaylen Brown, Boston’s clear-cut No. 1 option while Tatum recovers from Achilles surgery, exited Wednesday night’s preseason finale at TD Garden with what the team called left hamstring tightness.

Brown suffered the injury midway through the first quarter. Roughly a minute after falling awkwardly on a drive to the basket, he grabbed at his hamstring, called for a sub and walked off toward the locker room. The Celtics announced Brown was doubtful to return, and he did not, finishing with seven points, two rebounds and one steal in seven minutes.

Derrick White stuffed the stat sheet in Brown’s absence, Neemias Queta played his best game of the preseason, and the Celtics beat the Toronto Raptors 110-108 on a last-second basket by Xavier Tillman. But the lead story heading into next Wednesday’s regular-season opener against the Philadelphia 76ers now will be Brown’s availability.

Head coach Joe Mazzulla did not have an update on Brown’s injury after the game, but he downplayed its severity.

“I think we’ll be OK,” Mazzulla said. “I talked to him after and he said he’ll be fine, but I didn’t get a full update.”

The Celtics started a lineup of Payton Pritchard, White, Brown, Chris Boucher and Queta against the Raptors – a possible preview of what their starting five could look like on opening night if Brown is healthy.

The other realistic candidate to start is Sam Hauser, who did not dress for Wednesday’s game after starting against Cleveland on Sunday. If Brown misses time, a starting lineup of Pritchard, White, Hauser, Boucher and Queta would be the most logical grouping.

Toronto started its top unit of Brandon Ingram, Scottie Barnes, Immanuel Quickley, RJ Barrett and Jakob Poeltl, making this the first time the Celtics faced an opponent’s starters this preseason. Boston’s first three foes rested most of their regulars.

White – one of two returning starters from last season’s team, along with Brown – was a standout at both ends, finishing with 32 points, nine rebounds, six assists, four blocks and one turnover in 35 minutes. No other Celtic reached double figures until Anfernee Simons (14 points on 4-of-13 shooting, six turnovers) hit a 3-pointer with 2:53 remaining.

Pritchard went 1-for-11 from the field and 0-for-8 from three, but he made all eight of his free throws, dished out 10 assists and was a team-best plus-19.

After playing fewer minutes than expected over Boston’s first three preseason games, Queta also delivered against the Raptors with four blocks and 12 rebounds, including five offensive boards. The Celtics’ lone 7-footer also had eight points on 4-of-7 shooting, headlined by a series of nifty post moves to beat Barnes on one second-quarter bucket.

Even with Hauser not in uniform, the Celtics used 12 different players in the opening quarter. Simons, Josh Minott and Luka Garza entered in the first round of substitutions at the 6:42 mark, followed by Jordan Walsh and Hugo Gonzalez, then Tillman, then Baylor Scheierman.

It’s not clear how many of those reserves will see regular minutes this season, but Mazzulla suggested he could employ a deep rotation – or, as he put it pregame, no rotation at all – to play to the strengths of his new, less experienced roster.

“I don’t know that we’ll have one throughout the entire year,” Mazzulla said. “Listen, every time you have a team, a strength and a weakness can be very similar to those things, right? And I think one of our strengths is the depth that we have. We may have limited experience, we may have newness, but I think we have depth. And I think the ability to not have a rotation is a strength, because you can go to fresh guys, you can go to a bunch of different guys, you can do a bunch of different things. We’re in the, obviously, early stages of that, but I’m not sure that we will have one, and I think that actually could be a good thing for us throughout the season.”

The Celtics are especially unproven in the frontcourt, where they’ll be relying on Queta, Boucher, Garza and Tillman to replace Kristaps Porzingis, Al Horford and Luke Kornet, and on the wing behind Brown and Hauser. Four young players are competing for roles there in Minott, Walsh, Scheierman and Gonzalez, all of whom logged at least 11 minutes Wednesday night.

Gonzalez, Boston’s high-motor first-round draft pick, continued to show potential as a 19-year-old rookie, even as the Celtics were outscored by 15 points over his 14 minutes. The Real Madrid product made both of his 3-pointers, blocked a shot, notched a nifty drive-and-kick assist and earned praise from Mazzulla for his “defensive instincts.”

“He plays so hard, so that’s obviously like a good first start,” White said. “And he just knows how to play, knows how to be in the right position, and competes at a high level. … You could tell that he’s been a pro for a while and played basketball at a high level for some time now, and I think he’s done a lot of good things for us in this preseason.”

After the Celtics went ahead 106-94 with 1:53 to play, Mazzulla opted to close with a lineup that featured Simons, Minott, Scheierman, Gonzalez and Tillman against Toronto’s backups. That group could not protect the lead amid a slew of late Boston turnovers (Simons “has to be able to make sure that goes better,” Mazzulla said, when he’s the lone ball-handler on the floor), but after Jamison Battle tied the game with 8.9 seconds remaining, Tillman sank a game-winning 11-footer to send the Garden crowd home happy.

Tillman, who also hit a clutch three earlier in the fourth quarter, was the only Boston reserve to finish with a positive plus/minus in the win. All seven of his points came in the final four minutes.

“It’s a credit to him and his mindset to come in like he has,” Mazzulla said of the veteran big man, who was glued to the bench for most of last season. “He’s given us everything we could ask for — practice, games — and that’s kind of what it’s all about. So I don’t care that it’s a preseason game. The fact is, we won, and he was a big part of that, and he delivered, and we’re going to need him as we start the season.”

Originally Published: October 15, 2025 at 10:11 PM EDT