SAN FRANCISCO — Jayson Tatum said he didn’t want to make any excuses. The Celtics star sprained his ankle in the opening minutes of Tuesday’s game against the Warriors, which forced him to hobble back to the locker room. It wasn’t serious enough to keep him out of the game, and since he was out there on the court, he said players shouldn’t make excuses.
Still, ankle sprains can have lingering effects on the rest of the game. So while it wasn’t as severe as Game 7 of the East Finals last season, he detailed how it slowed him down for the rest of the game.
“When you sprain your ankle, you’re not 100%,” Tatum said. “So you gotta figure out other ways of what you can do or what feels more comfortable out there. You can’t move how you want to. You still try to figure out other ways to be effective.”
BET ANYTHINGGET $250 BONUSESPN BET
21+ and present in MA, NJ, PA, VA, MD, WV, TN, LA, KS, KY, CO, AZ, IL, IA, IN, OH, MI. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-Gambler.
It was an overall tough night for Tatum and the Celtics as they lost 132-126 in overtime to the Warriors on Tuesday at Chase Center. Boston blew a 17-point second-half lead as the Warriors forced overtime then finished off the comeback. Stephen Curry hit the dagger in the final moments, but the Warriors’ comeback effort also needed the Celtics to miss droves of shots.
Tatum finished with 15 points, eight rebounds and seven assists in his 41 minutes on the court. He shot just 5-for-17 and 2-for-9 from 3-point land. Tatum had a chance to win it at the end of regulation, but he put up a contested shot that didn’t go down.
“Could I have made it? Yeah. Could I have gotten a better shot? Yeah,” Tatum said. “Anytime you miss or lose, you always look at things differently, what you could’ve done better.”
The Celtics will look to regroup as they fell to 20-6 on the season, snapping a five-game win streak. They’re also now 6-6 on the road compared to a perfect 14-0 at home. But with the C’s on a four-game West Coast trip, they’ll look to right some wrongs. They take on the Kings at 10 p.m. Wednesday in Sacramento as part of a back-to-back next.
“I’m very confident in our team,” Tatum said. “20-6, other games we lost was close. Could’ve went either way. We want to win every game we play, but 20-6 is not bad and we can still get a lot better. So I think that’s a positive way of looking at it.”
- Highly anticipated sportsbooks like BetMGM Massachusetts, along with Caesars Sportsbook Massachusetts have been live since Spring of 2023. New players can use promo codes like the FanDuel Massachusetts promo code and the DraftKings Massachusetts promo.
