Could Jayson Tatum's injury end this iteration of the Celtics?

Melissa Rohlin

Fox Sports NBA writer

Jayson Tatum’s pain was palpable.

After throwing to the ball with remaining 2:58 in game 4 of the second round playoff series of the Boston Celtics against the New York Knicks on Monday, he collapsed on the court.

While laying in the hard wood of Madison Square Garden, he twisted 360 degrees. He grabbed on his right leg. He snuggled his head on his neck.

After they took him out of the court to a wheelchair, he covered his face with both hands, Noverheld for a heartbreaking combination of pain and mental eel.

A magnetic resonance on Tuesday confirmed everyone’s fear: Tatum suffered a torn tendon from Achilles.

The ramifications of such injury are not only devastating for the 27 -year -old superstar, but for the Celtics, who won a championship last season and whose hopes of the remaining contestants now and in the near future are now affected.

You can take a year to return from an Achilles tear. And just after a player returns, he is never the same.

That is an incredible blow to the cells, which had broken into the center of the basketball universe in the last four years with two final appearances and an 8-2 record against teams of the East Conference in the postseason. Last year, they sailed through the playoffs with a 16-3 record and a route to win their first title in 16 years.

This was the time of the Celtics.

Tatum and Jaylen Brown had finally discovered how to be complementary stars leaving aside their egos. They moved away from the coach of the Dallas Mavericks Jason Kidd by calling Brown Brown the best of the team during the 2024 finals, something that was considered widely as a tactic destined to divide them. Tatum celebrated the MVP from Brown winning finals. They had learned to root each other instead of themselves. Meanwhile, Jrue Holiday, Derrick White and Kristaps Porzingis had become stars in their roles.

Now, after seeing Tatum crumpled to the ground on Monday, the entire calculation of the Celtics has changed. All probability, this is the end of this iteration of the franchise.

Celtics now face a 3-1 series hole against the New York Knicks and an even greater existential dilemma: what follows for this team whose window for greatness has shorts significantly?

Will Celtics treat vacations and porzingis? Does Tatum’s injury open to move to Brown in what is emerging as a very interesting commercial market, with Giannis Antetokounmpo and Kevin potentially lasts?

Tatum and Brown have played together for eight seasons. Now, everything has changed for a team that was based on continuity.

And now everything has also changed for a construction of players about durability (Tatum, which had helped the Celtics to the posts in each of their eight years with the team, had lost a postseason game in his career until this race).

For Tatum, his reaction when he was carried from the court reflected a much deeper pain than the injury he suffered.

This could be the end of everything that had served in Since, was recruited by the team as the third general selection in 2017.

Tatum had 42 points, eight rebounds, four assists, four robberies and two blocks in game 4 before his tendon deliver it, doing everything possible at both ends of the court to prevent Celtics from falling.

But in the end, it was not enough. And when he fell, the Celtics not only lost their superstar, but the vision they had for their future.

It is very unlikely that the Celtics step on an exorbitantly high luxury tax bill for a team that Tatum, whose extent of five years, $ 313 million last summer, the largest contract of the NBA has become the next season.

And even before Tatum’s injury, Celtics’s weaknesses had exposed. The Cleveland Cavaliers surpassed the Celtics as seed number 1 at the Eastern Conference. Boston had a trembling December and January, losing almost as many games as they won. And now, after dropping their first two games at home against the Knicks and then losing essence a game 4 that should win, the Celtics are on the edge of the unexpectedly early departure from the playoffs.

For a team that was appearing bottles of champagne last June and now navigates an uncertain future, a new owner is coming.

And for Tatum, in the eye opening and closing, everything became an unknown giant.

Melissa Rohlin is a NBA Fox Sports writer. She previously covered the Sports Illustrated League, Loss Angeles Times, the news group from the Bay area and San Antonio Express-News. Follow her on Twitter @Melissarohlin.