By his standards, Boston Celtics star Jayson Tatum It was a disappointing NBA Finals against the Warriors.
Tatum, who was the Celtics’ top scorer in the 2021-22 regular season, also faced the Warriors in a six-game series. His three-time NBA All-Star selection averaged 21.5 points in the Finals, second only to Jaylen Brown’s 23.5 points.
More than two months after the Warriors won the NBA Championship at TD Garden, Tatum revealed that he played the entire playoff with an injury.
“It showed I had a non-displaced fracture [left] wrist,” Tatum told Bleacher Report’s Taylor Lukes in a live interview on Sunday.
“A tip that didn’t shift didn’t come out of the surface like a bone was scraped off, right? But it healed because the bone was growing… but it still hurt.” So I think I played with a broken bone for about two months. ”
Tatum, who had a 45.3% shooting percentage from the field during the 2021-22 regular season, dropped that number to 36.7% in six games against the Warriors. He earned only 13 points in the middle six.
Tatum admitted that his injury had aggravated during the playoffs, but he received treatment to keep playing.
“And in the playoffs, we had a play against Milwaukee in Game 3,” Tatum told Lukes. “I dunked. Giannis. [Antetokounmpo] He cornered me and fouled me and I fell into the crowd. And it hurt the most since the day I hurt it. And I got a shot of cortisone in my wrist that night and you can see it. It was so small that my hands were discolored.
“But after each game, I had to put the brace on for the shootaround, and I took it off before the cameras could see me.”
It’s unclear if Tatum had any procedures done to his wrist this offseason.
At that point in the season, most players are dealing with some type of injury. for its value Stephen Curry aggravated leg injury During Game 3 of the Finals. He played in Game 4 and created one of his most iconic performances of his career, scoring his 43 points, a game-high, as the Warriors finished his 3-his game-to-one. I tried not to fall into the hole. After the series evened out, Golden State won his next two games and won his NBA title for the 8th time in his season.
Related: Tatum was ‘miserable’ after Celtics Finals loss
Tatum, 24, is one of the best young players in the NBA and there’s no doubt he’ll be in good health when the 2022-23 NBA season starts in mid-October.
With both the Warriors and Celtics reviving nearly identical rosters from last year, they are likely to face each other again in the Finals next July, giving Tatum a chance to redeem himself.
