Brad Stevens talked Jayson Tatum, the Celtics ceiling, and more. Here’s everything I took away.

Ahead of Tuesday’s game between the Celtics and the Hornets, Brad Stevens sat down with Celtics media to discuss a slew of topics.

Here’s everything that he had to say, and what I made of it.

On Jayson Tatum’s return from Achilles:

Stevens stood by what the Celtics have always said about Jayson Tatum’s recovery timeline — he wasn’t going to come back until he was ready. And, Tatum has looked more than ready since his return: in 15 games back, he’s averaged 21.6 points, 9.8 rebounds, and 5.1 assists.

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“Until he was 110% at every threshold, had fully reconditioned, and he felt good, we weren’t even going to entertain the thought of him coming back,” Stevens said. “But it became clear, probably around the trade deadline, that early February time, that he was in a pretty good spot physically and from the standpoint of strength. And then it’s just a matter of reconditioning and getting your confidence back in a lot of ways, and playing and being back on the court.”

“And we did a lot of small games, and we had the Maine team down and got a chance to play a little bit live on the start of the post All-Star trip. And you could see that not only was he going to come along pretty quickly, but you could also see that he was getting more eager to play. So it was a really well-thought-out process by Dr. O’Malley, and Nick Sang, and Phil Coles, and followed strictly by Jayson, and everybody involved with that gets a lot of credit because of the amount of work that everybody put into it. It was nobody more than Jayson, with a close, close second by Nick. It was pretty incredible to watch up close. I got a front row seat for the whole thing. So I wasn’t sitting on the edge of my seat like others were the first time they saw him run up and down the court playing 5-on-5.”

What I took away: Brad Stevens confirms here that Tatum had been practicing since mid-February, and that he had looked good in those games (we kind of already knew that, but it sounds like these games started prior to when things were reported). Also of note — the Celtics knew that he would return when they chose to…

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Publish date : 2026-04-08 17:58:00

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