What’s next for Celtics after Jayson Tatum injury and season-ending loss to Knicks?

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NEW YORK — When Jaylen Brown fouled out late in the third quarter Friday night, the Madison Square Garden crowd sent him off with waves goodbye.

By then, the Celtics’ season was essentially over. Less than two weeks after they began the second round as overwhelming favorites, they were mashed by the Knicks 119-81 in a Game 6 debacle that Derrick White said “went left pretty quick.”

Without Jayson Tatum, who ruptured his Achilles tendon in Game 4, the Celtics trailed 64-37 at halftime and fell further behind after that. After picking up his sixth foul, Brown trudged toward the bench, knowing he hadn’t done enough to extend the series another game. He was crushed to lose the chance to earn a second consecutive championship but didn’t feel any differently about his team.

“It was an honor to share the locker room with these guys,” Brown said. “It hurt to see the emotions of all the guys. Being a leader and not being able to carry everybody to the promised land, it sucks. But it just wasn’t our year.”

The Celtics hoped to enter an era of prosperity after breaking through for last season’s championship. Unlike many recent champions, they returned their entire rotation, giving them what many thought was the best chance to repeat since the Warriors did so in 2018.

Instead, the Celtics suffered a shocking second-round exit and lost Tatum to a lengthy rehabilitation process in the same series. They were thumped in their final game like a team spent physically and emotionally.

“I’m proud of our group,” Brown said anyway. “I thought that we fought, we was in a lot of battles and there’s a lot to be excited for. This journey is not the end.”

Maybe not, but the Celtics are staring at a far more complicated future than they would have imagined just a week ago.

Jayson Tatum’s injury threw another wrench into forecasting the Celtics’ future. (Elsa/Getty Images)

Tatum’s injury turned the series into a disaster. But even before he ruptured his Achilles late in Game 4, the Celtics were headed for a 3-1 deficit.

Their first three losses in the series all followed similar scripts. They had second-half leads of 20 points in Game 1, 20 points in Game 2 and 14 points in Game 4. In each of those games, a string of Celtics lapses allowed the Knicks to pull closer and grow more confident. Considering how much coach Joe Mazzulla stresses the importance of such momentum swings, it was stunning to see the defending champions unable to hold onto big leads three times, including twice at home.

Were the Celtics worn down mentally by the process of trying to repeat? Were they too beat up to execute throughout the 48 minutes? Perhaps a combination of both.

“I thought we had a great year,” Brown said after Game 6. “Joe prepared us as best he could. We had a great mindset, a great mentality. Just some unfortunate events, some injuries and things like that. No excuses, but it just wasn’t our year.”

Even before the playoffs, problems started popping up for the Celtics. Brown missed eight of the final 16 regular-season games with a bone bruise in his right knee, and was on a minutes restriction throughout the final month of the regular season when he was able to suit up. After shooting a career-high 51.6 percent from the field during last season’s playoffs, he dipped to 44.1 percent from the field during this postseason run. Whenever asked about his knee, his responses revealed it was still limiting him physically.

An illness, which Kristaps Porziņģis said in March was something like Bronchitis, forced the 7’2 center to miss eight games beginning in late February. Though he returned and had some promising performances late in the regular season, he suffered what he called a “crash” during the playoffs. With his effectiveness diminished, the Celtics were 18.7 points per 100 possessions better without him on the court during the second round. Mazzulla stuck with Porziņģis until benching him for the second half of Game 5, saying later that the Celtics made the decision because Porziņģis “couldn’t breathe.”

After appearing in 11 of Boston’s 12 playoff games, Porziņģis said “nobody has a clear answer” for what caused his lingering fatigue. He said he underwent heart testing, among other evaluations, and doctors assured him he couldn’t do any serious harm by playing through the illness. But he never did shed its effects.

Given Porziņģis’ diminished state, Mazzulla likely waited too long to give Luke Kornet more minutes, though starting Kornet in Game 6 did no good. Even in the regular season, the Celtics were much better with Kornet on the floor. Perhaps because Porziņģis constantly seemed to be dealing with the effects of an injury or illness, the team only outscored opponents by 5.8 points per 100 possessions with him on the court during the regular season. Net rating is not an individual statistic, and many factors go into it that one player alone cannot control. Still, Porziņģis’ mark was the worst among Celtics regulars. The best belonged to Kornet.

Boston’s worst stretch of the season came shortly after Porziņģis made his season debut after missing the first 17 games. As well as Porziņģis played later in the regular season, the usual starting lineup with him in it was outscored by two points combined over 357 regular-season minutes. With Porziņģis regularly dealing with physical issues, one of the league’s best lineups last season became a liability.

The Celtics showed other cracks. Jrue Holiday missed 20 games with various minor injuries. When asked about his health in January, he said, in part, “I’m old, man.” He recorded his lowest scoring average since his rookie season (11.1 points per game) and his 3-point percentage dropped from 42.9 percent to 35.3 percent. After Tatum’s injury during the second round, Mazzulla suggested he was all too familiar with piecing together shorthanded lineups.

The Celtics overcame their new issues well enough to win 61 games, just three fewer than they did last season. White stretched the limits of his 3-point shooting en route to averaging a career-high 16.4 points per game. Payton Pritchard took a jump to become the Sixth Man of the Year. Kornet had the best season of his career. Al Horford, who ideally would have been afforded more rest at age 38, averaged more minutes than he did last season and continued to play at a high level. Tatum was an iron man, as usual, in a season that will likely give him a fourth straight first-team All-NBA nod.

The Magic only captured one game against the Celtics in the first round, but forced them out of their usual style by taking away the 3-point arc. As Mazzulla regularly suggested, the Celtics needed to find different ways to win. They weren’t always able to tap into the same championship formula.

Mazzulla still left the season appreciative of everything his team gave to the quest.

“I told the guys in the locker room, one of the honors of my life was to be able to coach this group of guys,” Mazzulla said. “So you go down the list, every one of these guys is a champion, a warrior, and they’ve done a lot of great things in this league. It’s an honor to be able to share the locker room with them, be next to them on the court and be in the arena with them. So I’m grateful for that, and to me, it just shows who they are as people, who they are as players. But that’s really what it’s all about, is those guys.

“They came in, we had a legit shot at it, and they gave everything they had to try to go. But we ran into a better team.”

Jaylen Brown wasn’t able to help the Celtics fend off elimination in Game 6. (Brian Babineau/NBAE via Getty Images)

Shortly before the regular-season opener, Mazzulla delivered one of his most memorable quotes when asked about the pressure he felt to maximize the opportunity in front of the Celtics as they aimed to become the NBA’s first repeat champions since the Warriors in 2018.

“We’re all going to be dead soon and it really doesn’t matter anymore,” Mazzulla said. “So there’s zero pressure.”

Mazzulla added that the Celtics were either going to win or lose, and 40 years down the road, nobody in the media would be invited to his funeral. As viral as that part of his answer went, a different part of the same answer better explained how he intended to approach the Celtics’ championship window.

“It’s not pressure,” Mazzulla said. “It’s an opportunity. We have an opportunity here over the next few years, however long we’re together. We have an opportunity to carry the organization forward, to double down on the tradition and the history of what this organization has.”

Mazzulla believed the Celtics would be able to pursue championships together for a sustained period to come. He looked at the current season through that lens. And he didn’t avoid the weight of history. Studying the best teams from the past, he recognized that the all-time great teams weren’t spared from hardships while they were stacking up championships. Great teams went through injuries, trades, down seasons and drama, too. They persevered through it all. Among other trends, Mazzulla found that no defending champion had advanced past the second round since the 2018 Warriors won the title.

Mazzulla braced the Celtics for the reality that adversity would come for them. He couldn’t have known how damaging it would be.

Tatum’s ruptured Achilles tendon could potentially shatter the team’s championship window far sooner than anyone, including Mazzulla, expected. Though the Celtics didn’t reveal a timeline for his recovery, the history of athletes with such injuries suggests Tatum could miss all of next season, or close to it. Even if he does eventually return to full strength, which isn’t promised, the team around him could look much different by the time he does.

“I haven’t really thought one second of that,” Mazzulla said. “More just focused on the guys in that locker room right now and grateful for the effort, and what they put through on that, and that’s really all that matters.”

Because of a payroll that would reach about $500 million if the Celtics simply hold onto their current roster, the front office was already thinking about significant offseason changes before Tatum’s injury, according to team sources. His absence could put a more drastic shakeup into play. Among many other factors for the Celtics to consider, Holiday will be at least 34 years old and Horford, an impending free agent, will be at least 39 by the time Tatum suits up again. Though Holiday dealt with lingering injuries throughout the regular season, his reputation as a known winner and top defender should interest several contending teams if the Celtics do look to move him, according to league sources.

Even if the Celtics trade at least one starter, don’t expect them to do so in a pure salary dump. They are more likely to look to acquire young talent to supplement the current core. But even the core could change. Porziņģis has missed 65 regular-season games since the Celtics acquired him in 2023. When he was available and healthy this season, the team played much better with either Horford or Kornet next to the other starters, a trend that continued through the playoffs. Though other teams will have the same questions about Porziņģis’ durability, his expiring contract should have value around the league.

Could the Celtics consider even more radical changes? Before Tatum’s injury, they were focused on maximizing the current championship window, as long as that lasted. If they think it’s over now, they will need to open a new one for the future,.

Brown still wanted to emphasize the future is bright.

“Losing to the Knicks feels like death,” Brown said. “But I was always taught that there’s life after death, so we’ll get ready for whatever’s next in the journey. I’ll be ready for it.”

“I’m looking forward to coming back stronger, so you just take this with your chin up,” Brown added. “I know Boston, it looks gloomy right now, obviously with JT being out and us kind of ending the year, but it’s a lot to look forward to. I want the city to feel excited about that. This is not the end, so I’m looking forward to what’s next.”

The Tatum injury shocked the Celtics partly because of how durable he has been throughout the years. He had never dealt with a significant injury before.

“Obviously losing JT’s tough,” White said. “Especially for how much work he puts into the game and works on his body and everything he does to go out and compete every night.”

As much as it helped the Celtics to have Tatum available so consistently, his playing time became an occasional topic of contention for some inside the Celtics organization during recent seasons. While it’s admirable he wanted to play so badly in an era of load management, the desire to avoid nights off again landed him in the top-10 in minutes per game, where he has now finished in five straight seasons. Including the playoffs, he has played more minutes than anybody else since the Celtics drafted him in 2017. Also a two-time Olympic gold medalist with Team USA, he has rarely given his body a break in recent years.

When the Celtics wanted him to rest, he consistently pushed back. After a March win against Miami, he said “a lot of headbutting” takes place before games when the team wants him to sit out. Based on the consistency with which he suits up, he wins most of those arguments. He played 72 regular-season games, crossing the 70-game mark like he has in every full season of his career. He takes his availability even more seriously on the road, where he knows fans don’t have many chances to see him play.

“I’ve been very blessed and fortunate… to, (when) I come in arenas, I see a lot of Tatum ‘0’ jerseys and kids with my shoes on,” Tatum said. “I understand they might be for their birthday or Christmas gift or whatever, and I try to stay ready and play as much and often as I can, and especially games on the road. I know somebody appreciated seeing me out there tonight.”

It’s the type of mindset that sets a tone of dependability for an entire organization. But after Tatum ruptured his Achilles, it’s easy to question whether the Celtics should have tried harder to force him to sit more consistently. His injury will have lasting ramifications. It could lead to significant changes to a roster the Celtics cherished.

“I just love playing with the guys that we have in that locker room,” White said after Game 6. “Just a great group of guys that compete at a high level. Off the court, we just had a lot of fun. And I think that’s just what I’ll probably the most proud of, is just being able to say that I put on a Boston Celtics uniform with some amazing group of people, you can go down a list of every person who has been on the Celtics since I’ve been here. That’s probably what I’m most proud of.”

That same night in Miami, Tatum and a group of Celtics players debated the best player in Celtics and Lakers history. Though not everyone agreed with him, Tatum said Larry Bird and Kobe Bryant. Later, Tatum revealed he wanted to chase Bird for the title of best Celtics player ever. Even if he fell short in that quest, Tatum said such a goal would provide “a level of focus and motivation every single day to be the best you can.”

Somebody in the Celtics locker room mentioned that John Havlicek holds the Celtics franchise record with 26,395 points. After acknowledging the impressiveness of that mark, Tatum leaned back in front of his locker and smiled.

“I’ma catch him,” Tatum said.

It’s just one of his ambitions now on hold.

(Top photo of Al Horford: Brian Babineau / NBAE via Getty Images)

This news was originally published on this post .

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