LOS ANGELES \u2014 Jayson Tatum appeared on the floor moments before Celtics practice on Saturday and addressed photos showing him seemingly taking part in team activities in San Francisco. He clarified that he didn\u2019t take part in a practice, and rather participated in an optional workout with several Celtics teammates, including Luka Garza.<\/p>\n
Joe Mazzulla would not say whether Tatum, who added that he hasn\u2019t practiced since his Maine session, would practice with the team on Saturday as he continues to progress in his on-court work and overall recovery process.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s just continuing to get better,\u201d Mazzulla said. \u201cWorking on his reads and then continuing to hit his checkmarks in the weight room and then in the treatment room as well. The main goal is just making sure he gets 100% healthy and continues to get better and better.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just trusting the group that we have around him,\u201d he continued. \u201cAnd taking it step-by-step. So, just making sure we stick to that as much as we can. He came out of the Maine practice pretty well, and so we\u2019ll continue to see it from there. It just depends as he continues to hit those check marks, whatever they may be.\u201d<\/p>\n
The latest comments from Tatum and Mazzulla maintain the secrecy the Celtics and Tatum\u2019s team have operated with through the final stages of his Achilles recovery. Several reports indicated over the past week that Tatum\u2019s still uncertain whether he\u2019ll return or not this year, and despite speculation around an NBC-flexed Celtics start time on March 1 against the Sixers, he said that he does not have a return date in mind at the moment.<\/p>\n
Mazzulla said the Celtics hadn\u2019t practiced since Tatum\u2019s Maine Celtics session, which went well. Boston doesn\u2019t have a plan for him to join their actual practice activity other than continuing along his normal progression. That would seemingly indicate that there\u2019s no imminent return expected for the Celtics star in the near future.<\/p>\n
\u201cWork out, see how you recover the next day and then you just make a plan from there,\u201d Tatum said. \u201cIt was a little five-on-five (on Wednesday). It\u2019s tough to go into detail on every single thing I\u2019m doing every day, but I will say I\u2019m just getting acclimated more and doing little things with some of the guys out there, but it\u2019s all part of rehab and just going with the plan.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tatum added that he feels better than he did the previous day, and that\u2019s all he\u2019s focused on at the moment rather than a specific return date. He stressed that it\u2019s important that he put himself in position to have a return be a conversation, and continued stressing he won\u2019t play until he\u2019s 100% and he wouldn\u2019t indicate what percent he\u2019s currently at.<\/p>\n
The Celtics arrived at Santa Barbara Prep for practice alongside Tatum, who took some light shots on the court before the session began. He sported a team-issued shirt and sweatpants, put on his sneakers and spoke to the media before the practice closed once it began.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like I\u2019m beating a dead horse,\u201d Tatum said. \u201cI\u2019m taking it one day at a time. This is something that\u2019s very serious. The injury that I had is just a long journey. For me, it\u2019s just easier to take it one day at a time and see how I progress from there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES \u2014 Jayson Tatum appeared on the floor moments before Celtics practice on Saturday and addressed photos…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":616766,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3766],"tags":[7,45,75,3798,46,21388,6],"class_list":["post-616765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boston-celtics","tag-basketball","tag-boston","tag-boston-celtics","tag-bostonceltics","tag-celtics","tag-celtics-news","tag-nba"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116111569479400021","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=616765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/616766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=616765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=616765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=616765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}