{"id":653598,"date":"2026-03-12T01:10:31","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T01:10:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/653598\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T01:10:31","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T01:10:31","slug":"celtics-injury-report-reveals-team-could-be-very-shorthanded-vs-thunder-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/653598\/","title":{"rendered":"Celtics injury report reveals team could be very shorthanded vs Thunder"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jayson Tatum could miss his first game since returning from injury when the Celtics face the Oklahoma City Thunder on Thursday night. Tatum is listed as questionable to play with \u201cright Achilles repair reconditioning.\u201d He\u2019s appeared in three games so far for the Celtics, averaging 19.7 points, 6.7 rebounds, and 3.7 assists.<\/p>\n

Derrick White is also questionable to play as he deals with a right knee contusion. It appears likely he suffered that injury at the end of the third quarter of Tuesday\u2019s Celtics game against the San Antonio Spurs, though the team has yet to specify.<\/p>\n

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And, the Celtics continue to be without Nikola Vucevic<\/a>, who fractured his right index finger last Friday and underwent surgery on Saturday. The Celtics said then that Vucevic would be re-evaluated in three to four weeks, meaning he\u2019s unlikely to return with much time to spare in the regular season.<\/p>\n

With Vucevic sidelined, Luka Garza<\/a> is likely to keep seeing increased minutes. Across the three games since Vucevic\u2019s injury, he\u2019s averaged 6.7 points in 17.7 minutes, after falling out of the rotation since the trade deadline.<\/p>\n

Payton Pritchard<\/a>, who missed Tuesday\u2019s game due to neck spasms, is probable.<\/p>\n

How the Celtics, Thunder stack up<\/p>\n

The Thunder, despite an injury-riddled 2025-2026 campaign, have been the NBA\u2019s best team all season long. They\u2019re 51-15, have the league\u2019s best net rating at +10.8. The Thunder have the NBA\u2019s best defensive rating at 106.2, and its 7th-best offensive rating at 117. They\u2019ve won 9 of their last 10 games, and 6 straight.<\/p>\n

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The Thunder have been without Jalen Williams (hamstring), Alex Caruso (hip), and Isaiah Hartenstein (calf) of late.<\/p>\n

But different players have stepped up in their absence. For example, against the Denver Nuggets on Tuesday, Jaylin Williams exploded for 29 points and 12 rebounds. And guards Ajay Mitchell (a 2024 second-round pick) and Jared McCain (acquired at the trade deadline) have played key minutes off the bench.<\/p>\n

And, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander looks like the MVP front-runner; he\u2019s averaging 31.7 points and 6.6 assists per game, while shooting 55.1% from the field and 38.3% from three.<\/p>\n

After losing to the Spurs on Tuesday, the Celtics are 43-22 and have the NBA\u2019s second-best net rating at +7.9. The Celtics have the league\u2019s second-best offensive rating (119.8) and fifth-best defensive rating (111.8).<\/p>\n

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The two teams have yet to face each other this season, but will meet twice this month, the second match-up coming on March 25th at TD Garden.<\/p>\n

Last year, the Celtics went 0-2 against the Thunder.<\/p>\n

The Celtics are set to face the Thunder on Thursday at 9pm ET at Paycom Center.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jayson Tatum could miss his first game since returning from injury when the Celtics face the Oklahoma City…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":653599,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3766],"tags":[5577,328,7,45,75,3798,46,633,187,1243,949,364,1255,78,6563,77,17915,2740,6,3853,179,405,474,209],"class_list":["post-653598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boston-celtics","tag-ajay-mitchell","tag-alex-caruso","tag-basketball","tag-boston","tag-boston-celtics","tag-bostonceltics","tag-celtics","tag-defensive-rating","tag-denver-nuggets","tag-derrick-white","tag-isaiah-hartenstein","tag-jalen-williams","tag-jared-mccain","tag-jaylen-brown","tag-jaylin-williams","tag-jayson-tatum","tag-luka-garza","tag-massachusetts","tag-nba","tag-nikola-vucevic","tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","tag-payton-pritchard","tag-san-antonio-spurs","tag-shai-gilgeous-alexander"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116213543470514467","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653598","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=653598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/653599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=653598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=653598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=653598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}