'Grateful' Jayson Tatum Gets a 'Big Win' in More Ways Than One in His Celtics Return

BOSTON — When Baylor Scheierman ran to the scorer’s table with 5:01 to go in Boston’s win over the Dallas Mavericks, Jayson Tatum knew his night was over.

Clearly wiped out from his first NBA action in 10 months, he walked back to the bench, stopping to give Joe Mazzulla an extended hug after 27 minutes of his first official basketball since his Achilles injury. The return everyone had anticipated for so long was over after 15 points, 12 rebounds, and seven assists.

Jayson Tatum checks out of his first game in 298 days to loud applause in Boston 👏☘️ pic.twitter.com/d22AHOIrH4
— ESPN (@espn) March 7, 2026

“I dreamed about this moment and the anticipation, the crowd,” Tatum said afterward, admitting to being anxious heading into it. “It’s been 42 and a half weeks since I played in an NBA game, so just trying to get caught up on the speed and everything. Just kind of felt like I was a step off or moving too fast. But the game started to slow down and I just kind of relaxed a little bit.”

Tatum had some great moments in his return. His putback dunk with 1:16 to go in the first half set off an TD Garden crowd that had been itching to explode. His three-pointer 22 seconds later sent them into a frenzy not heard since the NBA Finals. Tatum found the moment, of all things, soothing.

“It helped me relax a lot,” He said. “As a basketball player, when you take an extended period of time off, you're anxious, you want it really bad. And obviously, I wanted to hit every shot I took, but I really was just kind of like, grateful. I had a real sense of gratitude to just, like, just being back on the floor and playing basketball again. And it just kind of brought me back to everything I've been through in the last 10 months, and the fact that I was able to even be out there today was like a really big win for me.”

It’s good that he had that attitude, because there was so much rust in his first couple of stints that anyone touching might need a tetanus shot just to be safe. Nearly 300 days between games will do that to anyone, even one of the greatest in the game. After his first jumper sailed short and wide, and then his first dunk attempt resulted in being blocked by the rim, it would have been easy to simply look at being back as a moral victory.

“Obviously his health is our priority. I don’t want to see him get hurt again or put himself at risk,” Jaylen Brown said. “So it made me a little nervous seeing him go up there like that. I just want to make sure all the protocols are being met, to make sure his health and everything is safe. So obviously we trust the medical staff and whatnot. But today was the first game and we just see and go from there.”

Where it goes from here feels really promising if this is the starting point. Progress at this point isn’t linear, so it’s possible his next game, whenever that might be, will be messier than this one. No one will know how a particular day goes until they see how he recovers from it.

“It’s a long process,” Tatum said. “It’s a very serious thing that happened that I had to overcome. And this was a huge step. I’ve still got a long way to go. But this was a really big step for me.”

That's something everyone understands. It’s why Mazzulla stopped to give him a hug on his way off the floor. It’s why Tatum took some extra time after the game to hug his son and his mother, and to soak up the love from the crowd.

Tatum is back where he belongs: on the parquet, with his family of fellow Celtics. He has spent more than four months watching them blow past expectations, celebrating win after win while all he could do was enjoy it from a front-row seat. At a team meeting yesterday, Tatum let his teammates know how much being in that seat has meant to him.

“Every single day, the joy and competitive nature that they displayed, I wanted to be a part of that,” Tatum said. “Going through rehab and being injured is lonely. And it’s not intentional, but there’s a lot – I couldn’t practice for a while, I couldn’t be in the game, when they were on the court I was in the weight room having to do my own thing.

“So you feel isolated in a sense, but I just expressed that being around as much as possible, going to games, being on the plane, really made me feel like I was still very much a part of the team. And how thankful to the group for just being themselves that I was. Thankful to the coaches that have extended their days a lot by helping me during rehab on the court in pickup games and my conditioning. So I really was just kind of telling everybody in the room that they all played a part in essentially getting me to this moment. And I was very thankful for that.”