Jaylen Brown began experiencing knee pain in mid-March.
Jaylen Brown began experiencing knee pain in mid-March.Danielle Parhizkaran/Globe Staff
Celtics forward Jaylen Brown has been playing with a partially torn meniscus in his right knee, according to a league source. The Celtics All-Star will be evaluated within the next week to determine if surgery is necessary, the source said.
Partial meniscus tears can be treated with rest, physical therapy and pain injections, but procedures are sometimes recommended. Players who undergo surgery are generally sidelined from six weeks to six months, depending on the type of procedure.
After the Celtics’ season ended with a Game 6 loss to the Knicks in the Eastern Conference semifinals on Friday, Brown did not reveal the extent of his injury but also did not rule out the possibility of undergoing surgery this summer.
“Nothing to talk about right now, but we’ll see the next steps,” he said. “You just sit back and process and see what the next steps are.”
Brown began experiencing knee pain in mid-March, and on March 21 the Celtics announced that he had been diagnosed with a bone bruise with posterior impingement, and would miss the team’s next two games.
Brown returned March 23 but his athleticism appeared to be limited over the final two months of the season. He occasionally turned down what would normally have been acrobatic dunks in favor of less taxing layups.
But he played on, and the Celtics certainly did not seem concerned as Brown received a heavy workload throughout the playoffs. He played 45 minutes in the Celtics’ Game 1 overtime loss to New York and 41 minutes in Game 2.
In Game 5 on Wednesday, with Jayson Tatum out for the season because of a ruptured Achilles’ tendon, Brown had one of his finest games as a Celtic, tallying 26 points, 12 assists, 8 rebounds and just 2 turnovers, leading Boston to a win. But the Celtics’ season would end two nights later.
Point guard Jrue Holiday, who tore a tendon in his pinkie finger in late February and played through the injury for months, said Saturday that his finger is now fully healed and will not require surgery.
Adam Himmelsbach can be reached at adam.himmelsbach@globe.com. Follow him @adamhimmelsbach.