Jayson Tatum wasn\u2019t sure he was going to be here.<\/p>\n
\u201dI get the opportunity to be a part of this team and play in the playoffs \u2014 I couldn\u2019t be more grateful,\u201d Tatum said at his media session on Friday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think there\u2019s just more of a sense of gratitude than ever. Not that I ever took it for granted but when something is taken away from you, it just means a little bit more.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was just eleven months ago that Tatum fell to the Madison Square Garden floor in Game 4 of last season\u2019s Eastern Conference Semifinals with a torn Achilles.<\/p>\n
It has been a long journey for Tatum to get back to this point, some of which you can watch in his mini-documentary, The Quiet Work.<\/p>\n
Not even a year after the injury, he needs to be ready for the grind that is the NBA Playoffs so the Celtics can make another run at a championship.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m ready, it\u2019s part of the progression,\u201d Tatum said. \u201cI started on a minute restriction and every couple of games it would go up as we geared up for the playoffs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Has JT surprised himself with how well he has played in his return from injury?<\/p>\n
\u201dShort answer would be \u2018yes,\u2019 but with that there is the quick turnover of wanting more. When you (are) not 100% yourself yet \u2014 it\u2019s only been 16 games \u2014 it can be frustrating at times but you gotta take a step back and be proud of what you accomplished of just coming back. Everything on top of that has been icing on the cake.\u201d<\/p>\n
He was also asked if he feels like he is entering his prime. \u201cI just turned 28\u2026 yeah.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m excited,\u201d Tatum said on how he felt emotionally heading into Game 1 on Sunday. \u201cMy perspective has changed these last 48 weeks. When I got injured, there was a lot of uncertainty. The playoffs were not a sure thing. You know, now that I get that opportunity (to play in the playoffs again), I couldn\u2019t be more happy.\u201d<\/p>\n
The last question Tatum was asked was about the connection of this Celtics team and how they are working on said connection heading into the playoffs.<\/p>\n
\u201dIt takes place every day,\u201d JT said. \u201cGoing through it and winning a championship. You (are) trying to get a little bit better every single day, that\u2019s what the really special teams do.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jayson Tatum wasn\u2019t sure he was going to be here. \u201dI get the opportunity to be a part…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":712642,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3766],"tags":[7,45,75,3798,46,21388,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-712641","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boston-celtics","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-boston","10":"tag-boston-celtics","11":"tag-bostonceltics","12":"tag-celtics","13":"tag-celtics-news","14":"tag-nba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116421609566356480","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712641","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=712641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712641\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/712642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=712641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=712641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=712641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}