
Can the Boston Celtics Overcome Jayson Tatum's Injury? The Boston Celtics face a daunting challenge after their Game 4 loss to the New York Knicks, with star player Jayson Tatum potentially sidelined by a serious injury. This episode dives into the implications of Tatum's absence, the Celtics' defensive struggles, and the standout performances from Jalen Brunson and the Knicks. Host John Karalis of Boston Sports Journal analyzes the Celtics' strategy moving forward, highlighting the roles of Kristaps Porzingis, Jaylen Brown, and Jrue Holiday. With the Celtics down 3-1, can they rally without their star? Discover the team's mental approach and game plan for a crucial Game 5. Tune in for an in-depth look at the Celtics' path to redemption.
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John Corrales
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Jake Madison
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John Corrales
Jason Tatum gets hurt and it looks serious. The Celtics looked bad. They're down three one. Is there anything they can do to salvage their season? It's right now on the Locked on Celtics podcast. Huh?
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Yep, yep. Be sound, be ever ready. Recognize the city of champs back to back. I say it a stamp locked on number 19. The best one, the next one juice loose in your pool now for the next run it's the seas. Who else could it be? What they going to say now? Screaming like JT Corralis Recap the madness every game, every practice, best daily pod no cap like Brad Becket, clutch like Bruta KP tap in daily prime time Depp and D White on the sideline Ren and J. How it started raising Ben. That's how we finish. Locked on Celtics pod, home of the winners.
John Corrales
Hey there. Welcome back to the Lockdown Celtics podcast right here on the lockdown podcast network where it is your team every day. I get you covered every Monday through Friday plus bonus podcasts when they play in the weekend, if they will ever play in the weekend again this season, this postseason. Not sure, but I'll be here if they do. So make sure you're subscribed. If you get your podcast, watch the show on YouTube. I'm John Corrales. I'm covering the Celtics for Boston Sports Journal. I've been covering the team for about 20 years. I've written a couple of books about the Celtics as well. So, you know, I've got myself, you know, I think a decent depth of knowledge on The Boston Celtics. Today's show is brought to you by FanDuel. Right now, new customers get 200 in bonus bets when your first five dollar bet wins. A lot of people betting against the Boston Celtics because Jason Tatum went down with what appears to be a serious injury. I'll get into that. I'll get into the game, which is the. It looked like it once again looked like the Celtics had it and were not, not cruising the way they were in games one and two, but had a very good grasp on things but let it slip. Kristaps Porzingis was not good. I thought Jalen Brown was not good. And then I'll look ahead to Game 5 because it's not, not. I don't know, it's not quite done yet. I'll get to that. I'll get to that later. But you got to start, got to start with the Jason Tatum injury, which. Right. Still don't know what it is. There's a lot of theories running around. It's a non contact injury. If you didn't see it for some reason he planted that right foot. It looked like he might have gotten hits up around the shoulder area, but it was basically a non contact injury. He planted the foot and then he went down and he went right for the back of his foot, right for the ankle area. And you can see he was kind of holding that back area that screams Achilles injury. And he wouldn't get up. He needed help to get up. He was in the wheelchair in the back. When we were allowed in the locker room area, he was in one of the back rooms at Madison Square Garden. Turns out his mom and I believe his stepdad were in there. So his family was around. Celtics medical staff was in there. He was nowhere to be seen in the locker room. Players didn't said they didn't see him. They didn't talk to him. So just using some powers of deduction. That's not something that you normally see when it comes to an injury. If, if it's not serious. He might be out in the locker room icing or. It felt like he was being kind of kept away from everybody. I was waiting around to see if he would come out. Would he be on crutches, would he be wheeled out? How would he come out? Could you get any sense of anything? Sometimes these things look bad and it's not as bad as you think. But they never, he never reappeared that I could see. I've never seen, I haven't seen any video of him after the injury. We. So there's no kind of documentation of how he looks, what, what he's, you know, his demeanor, any of that stuff. The only video that we saw was from the broadcast of him getting wheeled into the back and he had his head in his hands. So right now it's just speculation. It could be an Achilles injury and we're trying to figure out the, the severity of it. Is it a clean tear? Is it a partial tear, Is it something that can be repaired and is short term, as far as, you know, a couple of months, or is it a full blown torn Achilles, or is it potentially some sort of something else? Is it a, A. I don't know. I don't know. It could be. It could be any number of things. But we know that we've seen that play before and it screams Achilles injury. And the only hope to me is that it's not so serious that it costs him next season. This is the trouble with these injuries that happen here now in May. This is May happened on May 12th. These Achilles injuries. If, if it takes six months, eight months. Well, six months brings us into November, December, eight months, January, February. That's. We might not see Jason Tatum until the All Star break, which, who knows, who knows it. This probably worst case scenario, that's probably where I would, I would guess best case scenario is it's. It's a strain, it's something that's. That doesn't need surgery, a summer off and you know, he could be back. That, that could be a best case scenario. But I'm saying that more in a hopeful manner as, as opposed to what I think the reality is. And I think the reality is it's a serious injury. I think no matter what, he's no longer playing at the very least in this series. If for some reason the Celtics are able to come back and extend this series, I don't think he'll be back in this series. And even in a best case scenario, him probably done for these playoffs, even considering the way the injury looked. Even if I'm wrong, even most of us are wrong and it's a strain of some kind even that puts his entire playoffs in jeopardy. So the Celtics are going to have to learn to live life pretty quickly without Jason Tatum. So that's the most I can say. And as I'm talking, I'll give, I'll give Twitter one more, one more chance to, you know, maybe Shams can come up with something, but I think it's telling. Yeah, nothing from Shams. Still. I think it's telling that Charms hasn't Said anything. The News breakers haven't said anything. It goes to the point, like, people ask me, like, you know, dig. Find something. It's like, well, we try. We try. But the way news breaks nowadays, agents and people within the organization, they go to one of, like, two people, and it's really just one person now. And there's not a lot of. There's not a lot of local News breakers anymore. And so usually it's shams at this point. And there's no. There's nothing. He doesn't. He. He doesn't have anything. My understanding is that unlike maybe some circumstances when a visiting. A visiting player gets hurt like this, they may take him right away to one of the local hospitals, especially in New York, New York City, that, you know, you've got two of everything. You get two NBA teams, two hockey teams, two NFL teams, two baseball teams. There's a lot of orthopedic people around town here that know how to diagnose and all of that stuff. And from my understanding, Tatum hasn't seen any of the people around here. This is all being handled in house by the Celtics. They're taking care of everything this way. No information gets out. No one on the outside has any access to any information. And when Joe Missoula spoke and said, lower body injury, MRI tomorrow, I think that's legitimately what we're. We're gonna get. We're were being told nothing. And I think Tuesday is MRI day. And that will be the. There will be an official stance now by then, maybe Tatum's people will leak something to Shams and we'll know. But the team is circling the wagons, and right now there's nothing, no information. Think about when Damian Lillard got hurt. We knew within an hour. There are fears of this being an Achilles tear. So the Celtics are keeping everything quiet, quiet, quiet. There was a game to be played, and it. It looked like once again, the Celtics had it. And then it looked like once again, that the Knicks went on a heater that could not be stopped. We'll talk about what actually happened in the game when I come back. Today's show is brought to you by hungryroot. I know this is the busy season for a lot of people. Everybody in the house has something going on. You don't have time to go grocery shopping or cook healthy meals at home. That's why you should be using hungryroot. It's like having your own personal shopper and nutritionist all wrapped into one. 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Use the code locked on MBA at@monimalmoney.com for 50 off your first order. That's monarchmoney.com code locked on MBA for half off your first year. Thanks for making lockdown Celtics your first listen. Every day go check out Locked on NBA game night. They got both games covered in the association. Talking some Celtics talking Minnesota beating the Golden State Warriors. So it's a weird playoffs. It is a weird playoffs and it's all covered on locked on NBA game night seven days a week. I'm there on Fridays with Jake Madison. So go check that out. There was a game they did play. It wasn't just Jason Tatum, although by the end it felt like Tatum was the the only story. But once again, the Celtics looked good early. They got out to a big early lead and the flow of the game was Celtics made a run. The Knicks had a little bit of an answer. And then the Celtics answered the answer right. Celtics going to run. Knicks make their little run, smaller run, 7, 8 to, you know, Boston would go on like a 13, 4. And then Knicks would cut it down to like 7 or 8 and Celtics make another run. And they kind of went back and forth on that third quarter. Celtics get up 14 once again looking good. Here come the Knicks make another run. And then the Celtics looked like they started to get a little confused defensively. Communication wasn't there. They lost Jalen Brunson a lot. And Brunson for the first time, this series truly got going for an extended period of time, not just the fourth quarter. Once Brunson got going and Mitchell Robinson was in the game and they got a ton of offensive rebounds. Celtics were getting crushed on the second chance points. That combination was too much. And the Celtics just couldn't, couldn't overcome it. All of a sudden everybody on the Knicks was making shots. Brunson was making everything. Bridges started making everything. Anunoby was hitting three pointers. It got to the same. You got Carl Anthony Towns pitching in. All of a sudden, Robinson keeping plays alive. The Celtics defense let them down in a big way. You know, I had been touting all series long how the Celtics had been holding the Knicks to 90 something 100 points and they gave 121 in this game. This is, this is the, this is the defense, the Celtics defense at its worst. Anunoby had 20, Carl Anthony Towns had 23, Mikhail Bridges had 23. Those, those games, you weren't getting all of those things at the same time. And then you have Brunson going for 39 and 12 assists. That's, that's a tough one. And because the Celtics lost game one and two, this type of game, you, you lost your margin for error. I said this on yesterday, I think yesterday's podcast, the margin for error went away. The Celtics were unable to withstand this. The weird game where everything was going in and they, they, you know, Brunson went off and all these other guys went off by Botching Games 1 and 2. You now put yourself in a position where this weird game where the Knicks just had everything going. Now you're down 3:1. And this is, this is the why in the playoffs you have to take care of business when it's there in front of you. It's why you have to, when you have that 20 point lead, you have to handle your business in the fourth quarter of game one. You have to handle your business in the fourth quarter of game two because now your backs against the wall and oh, now you've suffered an injury and you're already dealing with Jalen Brown's knee not being his absolute best. You now you're dealing with Kristaps Porzingis still not feeling his best. And so Tatum was there kind of carrying the team and now he goes down and here we are. Weirdness changes the entire complexion of the playoffs. You've got now the potential for the Cavs. They're down 3 1. Cavs could be bounced. You have Pacers, Knicks in the conference finals. One of Pacers or Knicks are going to the NBA Finals potentially if neither of the Cavs nor the Celtics can figure something out and come up with a kind of a miracle. But you have to handle your business when you have the opportunity. Games one and two were the missed opportunities. Game three, a 14 point lead. Still a good lead, but nine minutes to go in the third quarter, up 14. Sure you're you, you know, there's a potential for that to like, that's not state, that's not a stable lead at all. But the Celtics defensively, the way the, the way they lost Brunson was kind of like bothersome, right? It was, it was not great watching like confusion like, are you guys not the Boston Celtics? What's happening here? And a lot of this, I think stemmed from starting with Kristaps Porzingis, who said he was feeling his, you know, better but clearly was not playing very well. He's been, it, it's been disappointing, I'll put it that way. It's been disappointing for, you know, to watch Porzingis, to see him kind of, well, to literally disappear in game one because he just wasn't feeling well. And in game two, same idea. Game three, they didn't really need him, but he played well on defense in game four. They've needed him. They've needed him in these games. He's the key. He's, he's the guy that unlocks so much against the Knicks. He's the guy that makes the switching impossible. The Celtics, I go, I know I've said this a million times, but like, this is very, very similar to the 2023 playoffs where Brad Stevens said, you know what? We need somebody, we need that mismatch to go to. And Porzingis was going to be that guy. He should be that guy. He should have been that guy in this, in, in this series. And he hasn't been there. Just hasn't. And the illness is an unfortunate thing and some of it's not his fault. But, you know, with, with Porzingis, it's just like if it's not one thing, it's the other. If it's not the, the ankle, it's the knee. If it's not the knee, it's whatever. It's. It's something. And now it's an illness. And as I've said before, with Porzingis, it's never just an illness. It's never just a turned ankle. It's always the weirdest, worst case scenario with, with these things. And it's just been difficult. It's been difficult. And having a healthy Porzingis in this series would have changed everything. Series might be over right now. I might be talking about getting ready for the Pacers if Porzingis was healthy. And Jalen Brown, same thing. Jalen. Jalen did not play well in this game. I thought he tried to do too much early on in this game. I thought the Celtics were running decent offense and then Jalen was just running his own thing. It felt very separate. Jalen felt very on a different page than the Celtics. And you know, I'll have to go back and look at it to, to double check just to make sure that I'm, I'm looking at. I was seeing it right. But early in the game especially, it very much felt like Jalen was doing his own thing and the rest of the Celtics were moving the ball and Derrick White was the beneficiary. He had his first four three pointers. Tatum was having an awesome game. Tatum's numbers in this game, he. If it wasn't for the injury, he was on his way to one of his all time great. This still is one of his all time Great playoff games. 42 points on 57. 57 shooting. 44 from 3. 3 of 3 from the line. So 100 at the line. He had eight rebounds, forces four steals and two blocks. He was everywhere, especially early on. It was a, A classic vintage Jason Tatum stepping up kind of performance. But Jalen, Jalen was not, not good. I don't know what was going on with Jalen, but just too much dribbling, losing the ball. We're like, we're back to. We're back to the warriors finals. We're back to trying to do too much and losing the ball. I thought that lesson had been learned. So the guy, look, you got. I'll wrap up the the conversation about the game and all of the guys the the unbelievably like absent performances. But I'll finish on somewhat of an optimistic note or not a pessimistic note when it comes to game five. I the Celtics can still win game five. I don't know beyond that, but they can still win game five. We'll talk about it next. Today's show is brought to you by fanduel. Fanduel is here for you every moment of the playoffs and I don't know, maybe, maybe you have an optimism, an optimistic feeling about the Celtics. But look there are highlight worthy performances. They're major momentum shifts there can't miss moments and FanDuel makes it super easy to stay in the game before tip off and lives. You've got player props performance trends, same game parlays. Fans have more ways than ever to play smart and win big. So you could be, you know, in the middle of a game and say, oh I like this trend and I'm gonna bet on, you know, Mitchell Robinson's rebounds. 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John Corrales
Network thank you for making lockdown Celtics your first listen every day. Thank you for being an everydayer Monday through Friday with me. I appreciate it. If you're so inclined, I would suggest go checking out locked on Nicks. Maybe you don't want to listen to them right now. Or if you're inclined, you want to listen to one of the lockdowns from the other playoff series, go check them out. There's. It's a great way to stay up to date on everything that's happening. All right, let's get back to this game. Just quickly going through. Like I said, Porzingis was. Was. This is the worst series for him to be a negative. Talked about Jalen Brown. Drew Holiday did nothing, which is, you know, the Celtics are built around their depth right there. You need Holiday, Brown, Porzinga. You can, you can get production from all of these guys, but when you don't get production from three of them, that's a problem. They got decent production from Peyton Pritchard. Al Horford didn't really do much. But you, you never really look at Al Horford and say, I'm counting on him for scoring. He's. He'll have his scoring nights, and when he has a big scoring night, then great, that's a bonus. But to get nothing from Holiday, Brown, Porzingis, especially when it comes to defensively, that's a group that should be stopping what the Knicks were trying to do. And then in. The Knicks just could not be stopped. And that's the most frustrating thing. The fact that the Knicks could not be stopped is. Is tough. It's tough to watch. You know, listen, this is the matchup that I wanted. I think this is the matchup that the Celtics wanted. This was supposed to be a matchup that the Celtics handled easily. No one expected the Celtics to have a tough time here. No one expected them to be down 3:1. Not even Knicks fans. Even optimistic Knicks fans were like, nah, we're getting smoked. But here you are. You gotta. You gotta step up. And no one has in those three games, outside of Tatum and Derrick White in this game. So game five is Wednesday night, 7 o' clock in Boston. Look, call me crazy. I'm not saying the Celtics are going to win, but the Celtics could win. The Celtics can win. They're not. It's not like Tatum is the only offensive place. They're not. This isn't just a heliocentric Jason Tatum team, even though in the playoffs he's had to be more of that. The Celtics are a very good deep team. Starting the game with Jalen, Derek, Drew, Horford, and then I don't know what they're going to do. If they're going to. Will they start Porzingis? Will they go double big or. Or what do they go with Pritchard? I don't know how they're going to handle it, but they do have enough guys to. To win a game. Like, right now, it's. It's. You're not even thinking about, oh, my God, they have to win three games. No, they have to win one game on Wednesday. They. That's it. They have to win Wednesday, and then you worry about everything else after that. If they lose Wednesday, it's over. So all they have to do is win Wednesday. And then after Wednesday, you look at what happened and you say, okay, now we have to win on. What is it, Friday that they. They would be the next game. So game six would. Okay, all we have to do is win game six. You don't worry about game seven, because there's no game seven unless you win game six. So right now, the Celtics, even though nothing would indicate that they would win that game. We've seen Jalen play well without Jason. We've seen him be a distributor. We've seen the Celtics, you know, if they. If they can get hot from three, then they can beat anybody. We've seen them all season long play well, being down one guy here or there. Now, this is the worst guy to be without. But it's not like the Celtics are facing, you know, the. The warriors, the, you know, Steph Clay, Kevin Durant Warriors. This is still. This is still the Knicks. And, you know, to their credit, they've come out and played, you know, great, and they. They have a three one series lead. Like, that's not taking anything away from them. Knicks fans are going to be in the comments section. That's. There's nothing I can say. Just sit here and take it and, you know, they're going to laugh at me. And I say, if, you know, I'm wrong, I'm wrong, and sometimes you're going to be wrong about this stuff, and that's it. But they have enough. They have enough to beat the knicks in Game 5. They do. But it's gonna take kind of like a perfect game. It's gonna take Jalen playing his absolute Best. Whatever is going on, he's got to figure it out. It's going to take Porzingis playing his absolute best. Whatever he's got going on, he's got to figure it out. Guys have to make shots. Guys have to play their best. Let's play some defense and force a game six. That's all they can do. They have the horses to do it. But can they? Can they? Yes, they can. Will they? I don't know. I don't know. There's a lot of people who are going to think like, hey, if you're gonna lose the series, just do it right. And, you know, it's. This is very much the beat, right? Like, if you. If you're going to lose the series, like, if you fast forward and be like, oh, yeah, I looked into the future. The Celtics lose this series, then just. Just lose it. Just lose it. So we don't have to go traveling back and forth. Just be done with it. I think Celtics fans at this point are just, whatever's going to happen this off season is going to happen. Just whatever. But the competitor. The competitor says, look, man, you're gonna have to kill me to. To stop me. And so Celtics should not be going out. Like, with that other thought process. The Celtics should be in there thinking, what do we do to win game five? That's it. Only thing in. The only thing that you should be thinking of. It's a cruel world out there. This is very much animal kingdom type of stuff. Jason went down. If he's out for an extended period of time, if he's out for the season, whatever. He's out, like, he's done. He's gone. He can't think about it. You can't cry about it. You just. Because there are still games. All you can do is win game five now, right? And just be like, sorry, we now chase Jason Tatum no longer exists. In terms of what. What are we doing on the floor? And you have to get in your. Into your mind for game five. Forget, like, whatever. You can't be dwelling on that. All you can think about is what's in front of you. Maybe you put a little bit of a run together. Shock people. This is very much now, Boston against the world. Shock the world type of stuff. So we'll see. We'll see if they can step up and do something. The full squad hasn't been able to do it. Maybe if you take a guy away, they can focus up and. And get something done. I'll be here every step of the way. If the season ends, I will still be here. We'll do our post season stuff. We'll we'll start to look at the next moves and all that. But for right now we're still talking about basketball so hopefully you will stick around for that. I do appreciate you doing so. Thank you so much. If you are a regular listener, thank you. If you are not if you are, you should be subscribed wherever you get your podcast, watch the show on YouTube, get into those comment sections and then I would love it if you shared the podcast and told everybody they should be listening to and watching the Lockdown Celtics podcast here on the Lockdown Podcast Network. It's your team every day.
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John Corrales
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Host: John Karalis
Date: May 13, 2025
In this emotionally charged episode, John Karalis breaks down the disastrous turn in the Celtics' playoff journey—most notably, the potentially devastating injury to Jayson Tatum and the team’s collapse against the New York Knicks. With Boston now trailing 3-1 in the series and facing elimination, Karalis analyzes what went wrong, provides updates (or the lack thereof) on Tatum’s injury, dissects the failed performances by key players, and offers a sliver of hope—or at least perspective—for Game 5.
Tatum's Injury Details (02:00 – 07:00)
Frustration Over Information Blackout (07:00 – 09:00)
Game Flow and Major Turning Points (13:00 – 18:00)
Celtics’ Defensive Failures & Knicks Explosions
“This is why in the playoffs you have to take care of business when it’s there in front of you.” (16:33)
Kristaps Porzingis’ Negativity (20:00 – 22:30)
“With Porzingis, it’s never just an illness. It’s never just a turned ankle. It’s always the weirdest, worst-case scenario with these things.” (21:25)
Jalen Brown’s Off-Night
“We’re back to the Warriors finals. We’re back to trying to do too much and losing the ball. I thought that lesson had been learned.” (23:17)
Bright Spot: Derrick White & Tatum (Pre-Injury)
On Tatum’s Injury (speculation):
"He planted the foot and then he went down and he went right for the back of his foot, right for the ankle area. And you can see he was kind of holding that back area, that screams Achilles injury." — John Karalis, 02:45
On Celtics Defensive Meltdown:
"This is the defense, the Celtics defense at its worst. Anunoby had 20, Towns had 23, Bridges had 23... then you have Brunson going for 39 and 12 assists. That’s a tough one." — John Karalis, 15:43
On Missed Opportunities:
"It’s why you have to, when you have that 20-point lead, you have to handle your business in the fourth quarter of Game 1... because now, your back’s against the wall, and oh, now you’ve suffered an injury." — John Karalis, 16:39
On Celtics Mentality Going Forward:
"The competitor says, look man, you’re gonna have to kill me to stop me. The Celtics should be in there thinking, what do we do to win Game 5? That’s it. Only thing you should be thinking of." — John Karalis, 33:00
Karalis offers a candid, sometimes raw, assessment of the Celtics’ predicament—balancing realistic pessimism around the Tatum injury and the dramatic Game 4 collapse with the ever-present possibility (however faint) that this deep roster can deliver a perfect performance to prolong the season. The tone is urgent yet professional, with plenty of direct appeals to fans’ emotions and understanding of playoff basketball’s cruel realities.