Getty Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum of the Boston Celtics.
Two months ago, the Boston Celtics lost what would be their final game of the season against the Golden State Warriors in Game 6 of the 2022 NBA Finals. For Celtics star Jayson Tatum, making his first finals appearance at 24 years old would make quite an achievement. However, losing such a golden opportunity was difficult for him, as he admitted to Taylor Rooks of Bleacher Report.
“Those three or four days afterward, I was miserable,” Tatum said. “It took some time to kind of get out of that funk and kind of enjoy my life and being around my son and my family.”
Tatum brought up that his relaxed persona may give off the impression that he doesn’t care about winning, but he emphasized how much this game means to him, which played a part in why he felt the way he did after the finals.
“It’s just tough. Sometimes I feel like sometimes I come off so laid back that I don’t know if people don’t understand how much I invest into this game. How much I care how hard I work because I’m not like the loudest or may show everything. But it was just so tough because I literally gave everything that I had. To feel like I ran out, that I didn’t have anything left to give, and we were so close. I didn’t have an appetite. I didn’t want to talk to anybody. I didn’t want to go anywhere. I was just in my house for three or four days straight.
“I was miserable”
Jayson Tatum opens up on the aftermath of losing the NBA Finals during live interview with Taylor Rooks in B/R app
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How Tatum felt following the finals was not the only new information he revealed while interviewed by Rooks.
Tatum Dealt With Injury Behind the Scenes
Audiences knew that Tatum had been dealing with a shoulder injury that he suffered during Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Finals against the Miami Heat.
However, Tatum revealed during his interview with Rooks that he had been dealing with a wrist injury that wasn’t known to many people outside of the Celtics themselves for a few months during the regular season.
“I had a non-displaced fracture in my wrist, and it was small, but still. A non-displaced chip, so like I chipped the bone, but it didn’t leave the surface. It had shown that the bone had grown over it, so it healed, but I was still in pain because I kept getting hit or falling on it. So guess I played with somewhat of a fracture for two months.”
Tatum then revealed one specific incident in the postseason that made it feel the worst it ever had before.
“There was a play against Milwaukee in Game 3. I dunked it with Giannis chasing down. He fouled me, and I fell into the crowd. That was the most painful it’s been since that day that I hurt it.”
“I played with somewhat of a fracture for two months” 🤯
Jayson Tatum opens up about playing through an undisclosed injury during the playoffs in live interview with Taylor Rooks in B/R app
The clip below is the play Tatum was referring to. He evidently needed a moment to get back up following a hard, but common foul by Giannis Antetokoumnpo.
So Tatum has needed to recover from both a shoulder and wrist injury during the offseason. He gave reporters an update on how the shoulder recovery had done during his basketball camp.
Tatum Says His Shoulder Feels Good
During his basketball camp on July 30, 2022, Tatum caught up with reporters, where he assured them that his shoulder was feeling fine after dealing with it for a good portion of the Celtics’ playoff run.
“It was a longer season than I had ever played, but the shoulder feels good, I’ve got enough rest, so my body feels really good,” Tatum told reporters, “You know what works for you, what you may need to change, whether it be something in your strength program or your diet, so I think that just going through things and having that experience, you learn from it.”
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