The Sacramento Kings are hosting the Boston Celtics on Monday night for a star-studded, cross-conference matchup. Both teams were a bit banged up heading into Monday's matchup, with guys like Domantas Sabonis and Jaylen Brown receiving injury designations, and things managed to get worse during the game.
With 3:35 remaining in the third quarter, Celtics superstar Jayson Tatum rose up for a three-point attempt and drained it, but Kings' Sabonis got too tight on the closeout and stepped into Tatum's landing space.
Tatum rolled his ankle by landing on Sabonis' foot, and the Kings center was ultimately given a flagrant 1 for the illegal closeout.
Jayson Tatum went down in significant pain after this closeout by Domantas Sabonis.
Flagrant 1 on Sabonis. pic.twitter.com/Cnh0QfcQyo
— Zack Cox (@zm_cox) March 25, 2025
Tatum immediately fell to the floor in obvious pain, but after making his way to the bench for a couple of minutes, returned to the game to shoot the flagrant free throws.
As soon as he went 1-for-2 on his free-throw attempts, the Celtics subbed in Luke Kornet for Tatum, and now the superstar forward will likely not return to the game. If that was the end of his night, Tatum finished with 25 points, 7 rebounds, and 8 assists on 8-15 shooting from the field and 5-9 from deep in just 26 minutes of action.
Jayson Tatum practices this one-legged pull-up three from the wing before every game.
First time I've seen him actually do it in a game tho 🤯 pic.twitter.com/tKkyaxTreb
— Taylor Snow (@taylorcsnow) March 25, 2025
Tatum has had an incredible season to lead the Celtics to a 52-19 record fresh off a 2024 NBA championship. As the Celtics look to repeat, Tatum's health is certainly the priority, so keeping him sidelined for the rest of Monday's game makes sense.
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