Boston Celtics star Jayson Tatum has been upgraded to questionable for Game 3 of their first-round series against the Orlando Magic on Friday. Tatum suffered a right distal radius bone bruise in Game 1.
The Celtics’ Jaylen Brown (right knee posterior impingement) and Jrue Holiday (right hamstring strain) are also listed as questionable. In his pregame media availability, coach Joe Mazzulla did not provide any additional clarity on whether or not the three of them would play. Tatum is “feeling a little better,” he told reporters, via The Athletic’s Jay King, “so we’ll see how it goes.”
On Thursday, during an interview on 98.5 The Sports Hub, Mazzulla said that Tatum is dealing with a “severe bone bruise,” but has “progressively gotten a little bit better each day.”
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Tatum took a hard fall on his wrist in Boston’s series-opening 103-86 win last Sunday, and as a result, he missed its 109-100 win in Game 2 on Wednesday.
In the radio interview, which took place before Holiday and Brown were added to the injury report, Mazzulla said there is “a chance” that Tatum could return on Friday. Mazzulla also claimed that he doesn’t talk to team doctors — this may have been a joke, but it’s genuinely hard to tell with him — and couldn’t say whether Tatum’s injury is something that requires time off to heal.
“All I can tell you is, at the end of the day, he’s doing whatever he can, every minute of the 24 hours to put himself in position to try and be out there on the court,” Mazzulla said. “I trust his process, trust his mindset, trust the people around him that help put him in position and that’s all we can do.”
Wednesday’s win suggested that Boston can manage just fine without Tatum during this series, provided that everybody else is available. If Holiday and Brown are sidelined, though, the Celtics’ task will be tougher, and they will have less margin for error as they get deeper in the playoffs.
