Jayson Tatum had to be helped off the court on Monday at Madison Square Garden.
Jayson Tatum had to be helped off the court on Monday at Madison Square Garden.Danielle Parhizkaran/Globe Staff
Amid the anguish following the lower leg injury Celtics forward Jayson Tatum suffered Monday night, outsiders clung to at least a glimmer of hope. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as it looked. Maybe the NBA’s most durable superstar had avoided the worst.
Internally, though, it quickly became clear that the prognosis was grim. And the tears of team staffers in the bowels of Madison Square Garden following Boston’s Game 4 conference semifinal loss to the Knicks were evidence of that.
Tatum suffered a ruptured right Achilles tendon and underwent successful surgery on Tuesday morning to repair it, according to the Celtics.
The Celtics said Tatum is expected to make a full recovery and no timetable was given for his return, but players who have suffered similar injuries are typically sidelined for nearly a season.
New York, which was in control of its 121-113 win even before Tatum was hurt, holds a 3-1 series lead and will try to finish off the Celtics in Game 5 at TD Garden on Wednesday.
“We feel for [Tatum], of course,” Celtics center Kristaps Porzingis said. “But we have to move forward. He doesn’t want us to be sad and not playing our best basketball. So we’re going to go out there and leave it all out there and live with the results.”
The Celtics are favored to win Game 5 and have enough talent to challenge the Knicks over the rest of this series. But it is hard to envision a path to a championship without the franchise cornerstone.
Tatum’s injury will also ignite uncomfortable questions about Boston’s big-picture future. President of basketball operations Brad Stevens, who helped carry Tatum into the locker room Monday night, brought back this aging and high-priced championship roster this season because he felt he owed them an opportunity to repeat. Now, there will be difficult decisions in the coming months as the front office inevitably contemplates a new direction.
With three minutes left in the fourth quarter Monday, Tatum’s pass to Jaylen Brown near the top of the key was knocked away. When Tatum pursued the loose ball, he planted his right foot and quickly crumpled to the ground in pain after suffering a non-contact injury.
OG Anunoby scooped up the ball and raced in for a dunk that gave New York a 9-point lead, and Tatum signaled for a timeout and was eventually helped off the court by two team trainers, his right foot not touching the ground.
Tatum was later seen in a wheelchair in the bowels of the arena, and according to a team source, he was said to be in a state of shock. An emotional scene played out nearby. Team staffers wiped away tears as they embraced Tatum’s mother, Brandy, and the mood in the locker room was desolate.
“Obviously,” Brown said, “the loss is huge.”
Boston went 8-2 without Tatum during the regular season, but just 2-2 against playoff teams. Unlike in recent seasons, though, Boston mostly held its shape with Tatum on the bench, outscoring opponents by just 2 points per 100 possessions fewer than they did with him on the floor.
The Celtics have the pieces needed to topple the Knicks, but the deficit has erased all margin for error. NBA teams have a combined series record of 280-13 after taking a 3-1 lead.
The Celtics should get a boost from returning to an emotionally charged TD Garden for Game 5, and they still have a roster that would be the envy of most teams despite Tatum’s absence.
“We’ve got enough in this locker room,” Brown said, “so I believe in my guys.”
But they will need more from others, namely Brown. The All-Star and reigning Finals MVP is shooting a playoff career-low 43.7 percent from the field and 30.6 from the 3-point line while committing a playoff career-high 3.3 turnovers per game.
During the regular season he averaged 22.2 points per game, his lowest mark since the 2019-20 season. He was limited by foul trouble Monday and committed four turnovers in 32 minutes.
Porzingis, meanwhile, continues to deal with the remnants of the respiratory virus that caused him to miss eight games in early March. He had a significant setback at the start of this series, with sudden, extreme fatigue that caused what described as “crashes.”
Porzingis has come off the bench in Boston’s last three games and is just 3 for 22 from the 3-point line during these playoffs. But he left Game 4 encouraged after tallying 7 points and 4 rebounds in 24 minutes, his largest workload since Game 3 of Boston’s opening-round series against the Magic.
“Tonight was the first time I felt decent, honestly, just everything,” Porzingis said. “My energy, I was more, like, uplifted, and maybe didn’t have my best game, anyway, but my energy was good and I felt like I could go a bit more up and down, so that was a positive.”
The Celtics have also shown that offensive explosions can come from other sources on this roster.
With Tatum and Porzingis sitting out Boston’s March 5 win over the Trail Blazers, for example, guards Payton Pritchard and Derrick White erupted for 43 and 41 points, respectively.
White drained six 3-pointers in Game 4, and Pritchard, the NBA Sixth Man of the Year, is certainly capable of taking on a larger workload. Also, the Celtics are pleased with the progress of guard Jrue Holiday, who was sidelined for most of the Magic series because of a hamstring injury.
Even if the Celtics win Game 5, and even if they somehow capture this series, however, the road to another NBA title without Tatum would be quite daunting.
And beyond this postseason, the reverberations from Tatum’s catastrophic injury could be felt for years. Even with Tatum in the fold, Stevens faced some difficult choices this summer with the Celtics’ ballooning payroll.
The Celtics are currently projected to have a combined salary and luxury tax bill that approaches $500 million, an NBA record. Celtics lead governor Wyc Grousbeck, who is expected to remain in control through 2028, and incoming lead governor Bill Chisholm have both indicated that they are willing to pay what it takes to maintain this championship-level roster.
But if Tatum is forced to sit out next season, those expectations would have to be reset, and perhaps the payroll would, too.
The Celtics currently have about $227 million committed to 11 players next year, putting them about $20 million over the second apron line that puts various roster-building restrictions in place. There was a belief the team would look to get back below that threshold even if Tatum were healthy next year, and now that decision would likely be simplified.
Regardless, the absence of Tatum will create a crater, and there will be no guarantees about whether he will be able to recapture his top form when he returns.
Suns superstar Kevin Durant could offer some hope. Durant completely ruptured his Achilles tendon while playing for the Warriors during the 2019 NBA Finals, when he was 30 years old. He sat out the following season after signing with the Nets but regained his form fairly quickly and has averaged at least 26.6 points per game in every season since.
Lakers superstar Kobe Bryant tore his Achilles during the 2013 playoffs, at 34, and returned to the court the following December but never regained his explosiveness. He fractured his knee the following season and was sidelined due to a shoulder injury the year after that.
But Tatum remains just 27, and there have been medical advancements in the treatment of Achilles injuries over the past decade.
Adam Himmelsbach can be reached at adam.himmelsbach@globe.com. Follow him @adamhimmelsbach.