{"id":706797,"date":"2026-04-09T18:45:20","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T18:45:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/706797\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T18:45:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T18:45:20","slug":"tatum-back-at-madison-square-garden-for-1st-time-since-injury-but-celtics-without-brown-vs-knicks-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/706797\/","title":{"rendered":"Tatum back at Madison Square Garden for 1st time since injury, but Celtics without Brown vs. Knicks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"true\" data-v-ace7f8b6=\"\">NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/nba\/jayson-tatum-player\" class=\"entity\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jayson Tatum<\/a> is set to play at Madison Square Garden on Thursday night for the first time since rupturing his Achilles tendon there in last season&#8217;s playoffs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"true\" data-v-ace7f8b6=\"\">He&#8217;ll be without teammate <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/nba\/jaylen-brown-player\" class=\"entity\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jaylen Brown<\/a>, though, as the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/nba\/boston-celtics-team\" class=\"entity\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Celtics<\/a> ruled him out of their showdown against the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/nba\/new-york-knicks-team\" class=\"entity\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">New York Knicks<\/a> with left Achilles tendinitis.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"true\" data-v-ace7f8b6=\"\">The Celtics will lock up the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference with a victory, a position that many thought was unrealistic because they would be playing for at least most of the season without Tatum.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"true\" data-v-ace7f8b6=\"\">He was hurt last May 12 in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference semifinals when he fell to the court in the fourth quarter of a Knicks victory. New York went on to win the series, ending the Celtics\u2019 championship reign.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"true\" data-v-ace7f8b6=\"\">Tatum went through the Celtics&#8217; morning shootaround at MSG on Thursday and told reporters afterward that he felt \u201cnervousness, anxiousness. All the things you probably would expect.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"true\" data-v-ace7f8b6=\"\">Asked how he would get through it, he added: \u201cI think it&#8217;s just deciding to face the challenge head-on and put my uniform on.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"true\" data-v-ace7f8b6=\"\">Tatum returned March 6 and has played in 15 games, averaging 21.6 points and 9.8 rebounds. He said after the Celtics&#8217; home victory over Charlotte on Tuesday that he wasn&#8217;t \u201cthrilled to go back and play\u201d at Madison Square Garden.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"true\" data-v-ace7f8b6=\"\">\u201cLast time I played there, obviously, it was a traumatic experience for me,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"true\" data-v-ace7f8b6=\"\">Brown helped carry the Celtics through Tatum&#8217;s absence with a superb season. The All-Star is averaging 28.8 points in 70 games.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"true\" data-v-ace7f8b6=\"\">___<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"true\" data-v-ace7f8b6=\"\">AP <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/nba\" class=\"entity\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NBA<\/a>: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nba<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Jayson Tatum is set to play at Madison Square Garden on Thursday night for&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":675485,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7,75,78,77,1407,6,191],"class_list":{"0":"post-706797","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-boston-celtics","10":"tag-jaylen-brown","11":"tag-jayson-tatum","12":"tag-national-basketball-association","13":"tag-nba","14":"tag-new-york-knicks"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116376235401909329","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706797","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=706797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706797\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/675485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=706797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=706797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=706797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}