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<\/p>\nMIAMI \u2014 Boston star Jayson Tatum doesn’t know how much longer it’ll take for him to feel like he’s playing basketball at his best level again.<\/p>\n
That might be a scary statement.<\/p>\n
Tatum \u2014 in only his 12th game back after tearing his Achilles in last season’s playoffs \u2014 did something that he’s never done, that no Boston player has done since 2010 and that only two other Celtics have done in the franchise’s illustrious history.<\/p>\n
His numbers against the Miami Heat on Wednesday night: 25 points, 18 rebounds and 11 assists. That’s a monster of a triple-double, and it came with him still looking to regain his top form after not playing for nearly a year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wish I had a definitive answer,” Tatum said when asked after the game how much longer he’ll need to feel like he’s back to where he was before tearing the Achilles. “It sounds cliche. I feel a little bit better every game. I don\u2019t know how long it\u2019s going to take to be back to who I was, or hopefully better. But the goal is just to continue to stack days.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rajon Rondo had a triple-double with that many points, rebounds and assists for the Celtics in the 2010 playoffs. Larry Bird did it twice in regular season play, first in 1982 and then again in 1990. In Boston history, it had never happened outside of those three games.<\/p>\n
Until now.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Miami Heat center Bam Adebayo, left, and Boston Celtics forward Jayson Tatum, right, shake hands after an NBA basketball game, Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Miami. Credit: AP\/Lynne Sladky<\/p>\n
\u201cI can tell he\u2019s still out of shape,” Miami star Bam Adebayo said, smiling, when asked about his U.S. Olympic teammate. \u201cBut when you consider somebody like that your brother \u2014 we’ve known each other since we were like 12 \u2014 and you see what he\u2019s gone through, obviously checking up on him through the rehab phase and the down days that he\u2019s had, you\u2019re proud of him for pushing through it and putting himself out there this season.<\/p>\n
“He’s still trying to find his way, still trying to impact winning. You tip your hat off to somebody who\u2019s been through that and still trying to play.\u201d<\/p>\n
The shot isn’t fully back yet; Tatum is at only 40% from the field so far in his comeback. But he’s averaging 21.3 points and 9.8 rebounds per contest in his first 12 games, numbers that suggest he’s not too far away from the elite, All-NBA level he’s been at over the past several years.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo me, since he’s been back, he hasn’t missed a beat,\u201d Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla said.<\/p>\n
![\"Miami](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1775124565_286_image.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\n
Miami Heat forward Andrew Wiggins (22) and center Bam Adebayo, center, defend Boston Celtics forward Jayson Tatum (0) during the first half of an NBA basketball game, Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Miami. Credit: AP\/Lynne Sladky<\/p>\n
The Celtics have six games left in the regular season before likely opening the Eastern Conference playoffs as the No. 2 seed; they’re four games behind No. 1 Detroit and 2 1\/2 games ahead of No. 3 New York, so that second spot seems like it’ll be the landing point.<\/p>\n
It wasn’t clear when the season started if Tatum would be able to play, and even when he came back it wasn’t clear how impactful he would be.<\/p>\n
Those questions aren’t being asked anymore. It’s been 46 weeks since his surgery; yes, every Tuesday, he updates the total in his mind. And even if he doesn’t feel like his old self yet, the stats say he’s either there or right on the brink of being there.<\/p>\n
\u201cDefinitely the hardest thing I ever went through,” Tatum said. “I mean, I never took that much time off from basketball. The challenges that you have to face mentally and the long, dark moments and dark days … I mean, it is tough. It is. But I\u2019m proud of the fact that I\u2019ve made it this far.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIAMI \u2014 Boston star Jayson Tatum doesn’t know how much longer it’ll take for him to feel like…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":693632,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3778],"tags":[7,75,144,295,189,3881,6,2148],"class_list":{"0":"post-693631","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-miami-heat","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-boston-celtics","10":"tag-heat","11":"tag-miami","12":"tag-miami-heat","13":"tag-miamiheat","14":"tag-nba","15":"tag-wires-bot"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116334571043857075","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693631","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=693631"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693631\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/693632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=693631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=693631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=693631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}