Jayson Tatum nearly tallies a triple-double in return from Achilles injury

By Leobert Julian A. de la Peña

After 298 days, 10 months and 61 missed regular-season games, Jayson Tatum is officially back.

The Boston Celtics superstar successfully made his NBA return from a ruptured Achilles injury, steering the Eastern Conference powerhouse to a 120-100 win over the Dallas Mavericks on March 7, 2026.

“It’s been a long time coming just to get to this point,” Tatum said after the win.

“Just trying to get caught up on the speed and everything. I just kind of felt like I was a step off or moving too fast. But the game started to slow down as I just kind of relaxed a little bit.”

Despite being inactive for six consecutive months in the 2025-26 NBA regular season, Boston head coach Joe Mazzulla still opted to put Tatum in the starting lineup, which sent the whole TD Garden into pandemonium every time he caught the ball and looked to score.

Unfortunately, Tatum had a sluggish start to the game, missing his first six field goal attempts, including a rare air-balled 3-pointer and a dunk that rimmed out.

Mazzulla pulled Tatum out after six minutes of playing time, gave his superstar a brief pep talk and made sure everything had settled down, including the strong mix of emotions.

Tatum was reinserted midway through the second quarter, where he finally cashed in his first basket of the NBA season with a put-back dunk, followed by a signature step-back move from the left corner for 3.

Seconds after Tatum’s personal scoring stretch, the loyal Boston fans at TD Garden started to scream: “JT! JT! JT! JT!”

Tatum logged 27 minutes during his comeback game, filling the stat sheet with a near triple-double performance of 15 points, 12 rebounds and seven assists.

According to Mazzulla, the Celtics are still observing a strict playing-time restriction for Tatum, which will gradually increase over the remaining 19 NBA regular-season games.

“I still got a long way to go,” Tatum added.

“Nights and days I dreamed about this moment and anticipation, the crowd. It’s been 42½ weeks since I played in an NBA game, but this was a really good step.”