The Boston Celtics didn’t just lose a big playoff game, they lost their franchise cornerstone.
In his podcast after the game, Bill Simmons of The Ringer summed it up nicely.
“I really wanted to cancel this. Tonight was not a good night for Celtic fans. Holy (expletive),” Simmons said.
Simmons, a longtime Celtics fans and NBA pundit, said that Jayson Tatum‘s scary-looking injury in Game 4 against the New York Knicks could have huge ramifications for Boston’s future – and got a little melodramatic in the process.
“We’ll see what happens with Tatum, but this could go down as one of the darker Celtic days,” Simmons said.
The Celtics have had some dark days over the years. There was the death of draft pick Len Bias, the No. 2 pick of the 1986 NBA Draft. There was the tragic death of Reggie Lewis, who suffered cardiac arrest at the age of 27.
Even on the injury front, there was the year that Larry Bird injured his back while shoveling gravel for his mother’s driveway.
If Tatum’s injury is indeed severe, it could mark a turning point for the franchise. Even with All-Stars dotting the roster, Boston is built around their star scorer. As Simmons noted, this injury could derail the rest of Tatum’s NBA tenure.
“He’s at the peak of his career,” Simmons said. “He’s never had a major injury, Tatum. If this is like a major one, it doesn’t just take him out for this playoffs, but it takes them out for, I think, all of next year, too. You just wonder, is he gonna be able to get back to the point that he was at tonight?
Co-host J. Kyle Mann summed it up pretty well.
“That’s a huge (expletive) bummer, man,” he said.
The Celtics lost Game 4 to the Knicks to fall down 3-1 in the Eastern Conference Finals. Boston now faces a tall task of trying to pull off a major comeback without their top star.
The loss of Tatum could heavily impact Boston’s championship window. With the way the team is constructed, the roster could look different by the time he returns to the court.
Simmons stressed that’s why it was so important for the Celtics to cash-in with a title when they did.
“We’ll see what happens with Tatum. But this speaks to A, how hard how hard it is to win a title. B, how important injury luck is. C, how it is to just put together some really good years in a row,” Simmons said.
