BREAKING: Jayson Tatum CLEARED For Comeback FRIDAY NIGHT vs. Dallas Mavericks

0:00Jason Tatum is back listed as questionable. And that means it's time for bonus content here on the Lockdown Celtics podcast. Thank you for making this show your first listen every day. And I do appreciate you being here every Monday through Friday. This show is free. It's available everywhere. It's a 30-minute show. This is a bonus podcast, but typically 30-minute shows. These bonus podcasts can happen anytime, anywhere, definitely after games, definitely after the Friday night game against the Dallas Mavericks, because it looks like Jason Tatum is going to play in that game. I'm John Corralis. I'm a beat writer covering the Celtics 4 Sports Illustrated Celtics on S.I. I've been covering the team for about 20 years. I've been doing this podcast for 10 years. 10 years doing a podcast a long time. So thank you for being in every day. If you're new to the show, thank you for checking it out. And I hope you do enjoy this podcast. Again, this is a bonus podcast. It's a little bit shorter. But later on,

1:00Tom Musterholm will be joining me to do a fuller, deeper dive into Jason Tatum's return. The Celtics officially listed him as questionable, which means basically he is going to go through his stuff on Friday, his shoot around, his pregame. So we'll see him on the floor at TD Garden warming up. And then afterwards he'll turn to the Celtics and say, yes, I can go. No, I can't. And then he will either play or he won't. But I expect him to play and we'll see what happens when he does. Today's show is brought to you by TurboTax. It's tax time. But for a lot of us doing taxes is a lot trying to book an appointment. That's not the most convenient thing sitting in a waiting room with a stack of papers, emailing back and forth and wondering if they really get your situation. But this year, you're getting a major upgrade into it. Turbo Tax now has in person locations worldwide. I'm sorry, nationwide. Maybe worldwide,

2:03I don't know, but nationwide for sure. You can meet face to face with a real tax expert and your documents get uploaded straight to your TurboTax app on the spot. And just like that, you're done. Your TurboTax expert works to get you every dollar you deserve while you get real-time notifications as you go about your day. It's the relief of walking in and meeting a real person and walking out knowing your taxes are being handled right head to TurboTax.com slash local to find a store near you and book your appointment. So the Celtics are bringing Tatum back, right? Or Tatum is bringing himself back, I guess, is the more accurate thing. So let's just start with what's happening here. He's questionable. So it's not a guarantee that he's going to play against the Dallas Mavericks, but he's probably going to play against the Mavericks. Like I said, he's going to make the final call. Everything at this point has been cleared. Okay, we have to understand this. He has been cleared to play his

3:04surgeon, his doctors, his trainers. Everybody that looks at his body, his foot, his Achilles tendon. Everybody who has any kind of say has looked at it has said, yeah, he's good to go. It's been almost exactly 10 months. May 13th is the date he had the surgery. May 12th is when he suffered the injury. So 10 months is within the acceptable timeline. Is it sooner than other people have come back? Yes. Is it faster than anybody has ever come back? No. People have come back and played sooner than he has. So we have to understand that this is not, quote unquote, rushing it. They're not rushing him back. Okay, you may, you may think like, oh, why is he coming back so soon? Why are they rushing? No, this is not like it's not like he came back in six months. You know what I'm

4:05saying? Like at that point, I'd be like, Oh, geez, they're rushing him back. This is within the acceptable range. If I said that this can would cost you between three and $7 and it came in, well, yeah, no, $3. You'd be like, well, why are you charging me so little? This is such a, no, I told you it's going to cost between three and $7. We told you at the beginning, it's going to take between nine and 12 months for Tatum to come back. He didn't come back at nine. He's coming back at 10. So this is within the acceptable, the medically acceptable range. So don't look at it. Don't look at it as rushing. He will come back. Will he start? Will he play? How much will he play? We don't know. I think he should come off the bench, at least at the beginning, not to say that he's going to come off the bench in the playoffs or come off the bench, even by the end of

5:07the regular season. I think Jason should play. He's going to have a minute restriction. So whatever that is, 15 to 20 minutes, I'm going to guess it'll be a couple of stints, a seven minute stint in the first half, a seven minute stint in the second half or so, maybe longer, maybe they break it up a little bit. But you got to let him go out there and play. You got to go out there and let him get exhausted. You got to let him get tired. You've got to this is all part of the plan. But I don't think it's going to be a ton of minutes. I don't think it's going to be like he's not coming back right away and playing 30 minutes. I think I think most people get it. But I just wanted to say it to be to be clear. It's going to be seven, eight minute stretches. I think the best thing and the most

6:14likely thing is you bring him in, I don't know, seven minutes into the first first quarter. So at the five minute mark, you play him five minutes, you give him the quarter break, you give him a few minutes after that. And then boom, you get him into half time. Everybody comes together, trainers, doctors, everybody. How are you feeling? How is this? Whatever, whatever, whatever questions you need to ask. And then you say, okay, everything good. Everybody's going to be super careful. Everybody's going to ask him every question possible. And then in the second half, you do it again. And then after the game, you say, how are you feeling? What are you doing? Whatever test you have to do, whatever imaging you have to do, all of that stuff, just to be sure. But at this point, it's about ramping him up. This is still part of the rehab process. This is still part of the getting him back

7:15to being Jason Tatum. So I'm excited. Obviously, to see him, I think we all should be excited to see him. I think this is a great step back. This is basically what I expected him to come back and do. I've been saying for months and months, since like August and September, that early March was the acceptable time for him to come back. It was the expected time for him to come back. And here we are. In early March, it'll be March 6 when he comes back. So it's going to be an interesting kind of reintegration for Jason Tatum. I just want to be clear. I'm not sure that everybody realizes it. I'm sure like everybody wants to vibe and have some fun and do all that stuff. I get it. I totally get it. So I'm not trying to like rain on anybody's parade.

8:22But I do want to set the expectation. I want to make sure that everybody understands what this step is for Jason Tatum. And I'm going to do that when we come back. Today's show is brought to you by five hour energy. We're doing a five hour energy flavor draft. And with 18 different flavors to choose from, new options like confetti craze for the rainbow and cotton candy. There is something for everyone. The board is set. The flavors are ready. And I got my number one pick here for the five hour energy flavor draft. We're having some phone with it. I've done this a couple of times now. They have a variety of things. And so your number one pick is not my number one pick because maybe you have a super sweet tooth. And you want like cotton candy, a delicious swirl of sugary clouds for the twist, the hint of vanilla. That is a sweet tooth fix without any sugar guilt. This is the number one thing. No sugar, zero sugar. You get the caffeine that gives you a little something extra. You get a little energy that gives you something extra. It's a five hour energy shot. And so you're going to get that boost that you're looking for.

9:22But you're not going to get that crazy sugar that's going to get you that crash later. I am going a little bit different. I have gravitated towards grape towards berry. You can go the other direction with sour apple, which is the apple that bites back deliciously tart, bold, sweet with a little bit of sour or a little sweet with a lot of sour. I just like keeping it simple. I'm going to go with the regular berry, which is big bowl berry, smooth sweetness without being overly sugary. It's a familiar, easy to recognize fruit profile profile with notes of raspberry and blackberry. So that's going to be the one I go to. It's either berry or grape for me. I'm a simple person. So you can get these, whichever one you want, at five hour energy, that's number five, our energy, dot com, or you can just go to Amazon. Today's show is also brought to you by game time. Maybe now that Jason Tatum is coming back, you want to get into this NBA, whatever NBA arena the Celtics are in,

10:23the crowd, the energy, the moment's going to be huge at TD Garden. You can use the game time app to try to get in. I know the price is going to be big for that game on Friday night, but you can check it out. And the price that you see is going to price you're going to pay up front. So no surprise fees to check out. It's all in pricing. The view from your seat is a great feature because you can look at your phone and see what the view is. And then you can even choose a zone deal. If you know the section that you want and tell them I want two tickets in this section, the zone deal will have game time pick the seats and you save a couple of bucks. That way it's quick. It's intuitive and it's stress-free from start to finish. Take the guesswork out of buying NBA tickets with game time. Download the game time app, create an account and use the code Lockdown for $20 off your first purchase. That's code Lockdown, LLC, K, E, D, O, and for $20 off, download the game time app today. And remember, it's gametime.co on the web, gametime.co. Thanks for making Lockdown Celtics your first list every day. You're in every day or come join me on the every day or club. Lockdownseltics.supercast.com. You can go and it's five bucks a month or

11:29fifty bucks for the year. You get ad-free audio. It's all available at Lockdownseltics.supercast.com. The ad-free audio is on any major podcasting app. You can get the access to our Discord server as well. So that's available to Celtics fans, NBA fans. So check it out. Lockdownseltics.supercast.com. All right. So I want to be clear about what Jason Tatum is doing here. And just because he is back on the floor, doesn't mean I know a lot of you understand this, but I want to say it. It doesn't mean that we're seeing Jason Tatum. That's going to take some time. This is the next step in his rehab. This is not Jason Tatum is done with his rehab. This is the next step. Everything that can be accomplished by scrimmaging, by practicing, has been accomplished. The gap between scrimmaging with your teammates, even with the G-League team,

12:37and playing NBA basketball is wide. It is a wide gap. And so you have to understand it's going to take a little bit of time for Tatum to become Jason Tatum again. So just allow Tatum to go through these steps here. I'm laughing because you don't see my dogs in front of me doing all kinds of crazy things, including chewing on a sweater that I like. Because why not make me laugh during the middle of a podcast? I wish I could show it to you. But hey, stop doing that. I got to buy a new sweater now. All right. So I got to be clear that Jason is going through rehab here. This is the next step in the rehab process. He's

13:41going to be sore. He's going to miss more games just because Tatum is back now. Doesn't mean he's back for the rest of the regular season. So if Tatum misses the Sunday afternoon game against Cleveland, don't be shocked. Don't think like, oh my god, what's happening? What went wrong? This is part of the progression here. It's probably going to take him some time to go through all of this, to get acclimated, to go through the soreness. I mean, I cannot stress this enough. Practice is not game situation. It doesn't matter how much you practice. And I think anybody who's played basketball at any sort of high level can understand this concept. The Celtics, I'm sorry, I'm just looking at my dog chewing on things. The Celtics

14:45play, the Celtics can practice. And that's all fine. But Tatum playing in a game against the Dallas Mavericks. First of all, he in this game is going to have like this incredible boost of adrenaline. So don't be surprised if he gets tired quickly. He might get winded like two minutes into this game. And he's going to have his hands on his knees. He's going to be shaking his head. He's just going to be like, wow, I can't believe how tired I am. Or man, I'm rusty. Like he said in that, in his, in that video, when he first got back in the floor, you're going to see him doubled over. You're going to see him grabbing out his shorts. It's all part of it. This is all part of it. You have to go through this. You have to get that lung capacity up. The lungs will be burning. He will say it after the game, my lungs were burning. My legs felt heavy. And I'm surprised at how quickly

15:47my legs felt heavy. This is going to happen. You got to let him go through that, build up that lactic acid, work that through, take a day, take two days, he is ramp him up. This is all part of the ramp up process. So don't be surprised if he misses the game against Cleveland. I can see him missing that going to San Antonio playing that, maybe playing against OKC, maybe not coming back against Washington. There's an every other day thing happening here. He may not play every other day. He's not ready. I don't think for every other day, not yet. So don't be shocked. Don't be surprised by any of that stuff. That's the expectation that I have. I expect him to come back and play against Dallas. Be sore. Be winded. Tell us after the game. Oh my God. I haven't felt this bad after a

16:47game since maybe high school or something. And then figure it out from there. At this point, do you feel good enough on Sunday to play? Probably not. I'm going to guess. That's my guess. Give it an extra day. Play against San Antonio. Give it a day. Let's see. You feel like going against OKC. Maybe, maybe not. Maybe you want to push it. Maybe you do want to push it. Maybe you don't. Maybe you give it a couple of days and you come back. And being at home against Washington, Phoenix, and Golden State. Maybe that's where you start to push it. At some point, he will start to play the every other day. This is not about getting him ready for the playoffs. This is not about getting him ready for anything other than next season. I've said this before. Say it again. At this point to me, the Celtics 2025-26 season is over.

17:52The 26-27 preseason has begun. That's all I care about right now. This is preseason basketball for next season. Knock off the rust. Get through the soreness. Get through everything that you need to get through. Figure out who you are as a player. Are you still Jason Tatum? 100 percent? Great. Are you not? Are you 80 percent? Are you 90 percent? What do you need to be? What do you need to work on? The rest of this regular season and even whatever playoff minute he gets. It's about figuring out who you are as a player. What percentage of Jason Tatum you are going to be and taking that into the summer to begin next season as the absolute best basketball player that you can be. Which I expect to be Jason Tatum back at his absolute prime.

18:53So for now, celebrate that Jason Tatum as back and let him figure out what these next steps are. Full podcast is coming up later. I'll have Tom Westerholm from bosson.com here to discuss it. I might repeat myself a little bit, but we'll get Tom's take. We'll get into a whole lot more when that podcast. But for now, I do thank you for being here, for being part of this, for being in every day. If you're not, please subscribe. The show is daily Monday through Friday. It's about half an hour long. I do bonus podcasts after they play on Fridays or Saturday. So sometimes it's a six or seven day a week podcast. Plus bonus podcasts. These bonus podcasts can happen during the week at any time. So make sure you're subscribed to every year podcast. And then I would love it if you are in every day or to share the podcast. Tell everybody they should be listening to and watching the lockdown itself. It's podcast here in the lockdown podcast. Now we're going to your team every day every day.