Jayson Tatum greets Celtics back in New York with season on the line: ‘Bigger than basketball now’
NY Post
The Celtics put basketball to the side. For a brief period of time, all they were concerned with was Jayson Tatum as a human.
After rupturing his Achilles tendon in Game 4, Jayson Tatum had his surgery in New York City and has since stayed in the city.
After their Game 5 win over the Knicks staved off elimination and sent the series back to Madison Square Garden, the Celtics saw Tatum in person – Thursday night at the team hotel – for the first time since the injury.
“We didn’t talk about basketball at all,” Payton Pritchard said Friday morning after the Celtics’ shootaround ahead of Game 6. “It’s bigger than basketball now. It’s just seeing how he is as a person, how he’s dealing with stuff. The basketball side, we’ll handle that. Just wanted to check in as a friend.”
The injury is likely to sideline Tatum for all of next season.
“It was really good seeing him,” Pritchard added. “Seemed like he was in really good spirits. Obviously, he’s probably about to be stir crazy for a while now. When you see one of your brothers, your teammates go through a situation like that, you just want to be there to comfort and [do] anything he needs.”
It was Kids Day at Madison Square Garden on Sunday, but for the Rangers, it’s been All About The Kids for months.
PORT ST. LUCIE — From the moment he was told he needed surgery on his left hamate bone, Francisco Lindor fixated on the recovery time. Trainers provided the Mets shortstop a six-week pathway to return to play, and Lindor was determined to hit every marker.
Dylan Garand knew the number off the top of his head. He knew that, between the regular season and playoffs, he’d logged over 160 games with AHL Hartford, and he was right. Before the Rangers recalled him Friday, Garand had served as the Wolf Pack’s goaltender 165 times.
SAN DIEGO — As you may have seen elsewhere in this newspaper (and also if you haven’t deleted me yet from your social media), I have a book coming out Tuesday called “The Bosses of The Bronx.” Much of it details the 37 years’ worth of antics, winning, losing, winning again and overall mania of George Steinbrenner’s time with the Yankees.
Don’t close the curtain on “Mean” Joe Greene.
The Knicks are on a five-game winning streak and flooded with concerns.
Dylan Garand knew the number off the top of his head. He knew that, between the regular season and playoffs, he’d logged over 160 games with AHL Hartford, and he was right. Before the Rangers recalled him Friday, Garand had served as the Wolf Pack’s goaltender 165 times.
SAN DIEGO — As you may have seen elsewhere in this newspaper (and also if you haven’t deleted me yet from your social media), I have a book coming out Tuesday called “The Bosses of The Bronx.” Much of it details the 37 years’ worth of antics, winning, losing, winning again and overall mania of George Steinbrenner’s time with the Yankees.
The Knicks are on a five-game winning streak and flooded with concerns.
Don’t close the curtain on “Mean” Joe Greene.
The hockey world is getting a new TV adaptation of another romance series that helped define the genre.
What is there about Giants edger ushers and their fixation with single-digit jersey numbers?
Cade Cunningham, almost inarguably the best player in the East this season, is likely out for the remainder of the regular season. That’s the word out of Detroit following the depressing news that Cunningham punctured a lung when he took a knee to his side Tuesday from Washington’s Tre Johnson while chasing a loose ball.