Tatum's Celtics teammate express a shock, determined after an injury

Al Horford might have said it best after the defeat of 121-113 on Monday against the New York Knicks.

Yes, the Celtics' hopes of repeating themselves as NBA champions are almost wiped after they have come into a 3-1 series deficit in the semi-finals of the Eastern Conference.

But less than an hour after his team -mate Jayson Tatum was worn by the hardwood in Madison Square Garden, Horfords focused little to do with the team of the team.

“The loss is the loss. It is even more important that it is Jayson that I'm worried about,” said Horford. “Just make sure that I am there for him. This is my priority.”

On a night when the Celtics season was pushed to the edge, Tatum's status, which was moving forward, could create even worse effects on the dispute window in Boston in 2025-26 and beyond.

No official update about Tatum's condition was published after the superstar striker with a non-contact ankle injury was published with less than three minutes before the procedure before the procedure.

But based on the look of a disturbed crime, which requires a wheelchair to get its Celtics teammates shared by the tunnels under MSG – the bad news on Tuesday feels almost inevitable.

“It's hard,” said Jaylen Brown about Tatum's injury before taking a longer break. “There is not much to say.”

After the loss on Monday, Brown admitted that both he and the rest of his teammates had no opportunity to speak to Tatum. And while the rest of Boston's squad – similar to a worried fan base – waiting with a baitatem how long No. 0 fails, a shaken team has little time to deal with Tatum's status.

“I think everyone is concerned with Jayson,” said Brown. “I'm not sure how bad it is. It didn't look great. But I think [the injury]. Obviously the loss is huge. But we have to prepare for game 5, so we take the night and put ourselves up tomorrow and put together a game plan to get out on our own floor to keep this series alive. “

“I mean, of course that's our brother and you hate to see him down,” added Derrick White. “We only know the type he is, and it is difficult to see how it goes down. But at the moment it is quite low at the moment because of the game, and we only have one way to win game 5.”

For all optimism of Celtics fans that enter this latest playoff run, a number of critical injuries and misconduct in the execution now have Boston in a painful summer.

Tatum, Brown (knee), Jrue Holiday (thigh), Sam Hauer (ankle contamination) and Kristaps Porzingis (illness) were in a way selected in a certain way in this late season.

Brown's trademark has pressed some of its persistent knee pain, while the persistent symptoms of a persistent illness porcingis operate its skills.

But Tatum's injury has the most weight for a Keltics district of Win-Now-especially in one night in which the 27-year-old striker was brilliant (42 points, eight rebounds, four templates, four steals, two blocks).

“We are adult men, do you know?” Said Porzingis. “Who did not have any injuries? It is part of this sport, part of this game, and of course we feel for him. But we have to go forward. He doesn't want us to be sad and not play our best basketball. So we will go out there and let everything out there and live with the results.”

The chances of winning are not in favor of the Celtics for the rest of this series, especially if Tatum is likely to be excluded.

But Porzingis believes that Boston still has the means to keep their season alive – with or without their best player.

“We have the talent, we have a lot of talent,” said Porzingis. “Even if JT Out, even I maybe play for 10-15 minutes, we have the boys and we have shown in the past that we can still play basketball really well.

“Obviously there is no substitute for this guy for this guy, no? How, that's a great success for us, 100 percent. But we have to play with the hand we just treated, and that's it.

Conor Ryan is an employee who reports the Bruins, Celtics, Patriots and Red Sox for Boston.com, a role that he has been holding since 2023.