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Tim BontempsESPN
Boston Celtics forward Jayson Tatum said on Tuesday evening that he is still dealing with the aftermath of a contract for COVID-19 three months ago and that he uses an inhaler before the games as a means of fighting them.
“Close,” he said, after scoring 32 points, along with nine rebounds and five assists, in a 116-115 win at Boston in Portland, when asked if he’s back to 100 percent. “Very close.
“It’s a process. It takes a long time. I’ve been taking a pre-competition inhaler since I tested positive. This helped a little bit and opened my lungs, and, you know, I’ve never taken an inhaler before. So that’s another thing.
“I certainly feel better now than I did a month ago.”
He added that he is not sure how long he will have to use the inhaler, saying it will be before he feels good enough to play without it.
“There is no exact timetable,” said Tatum.[It’s] just when I’m comfortable enough and I don’t think I need it. “
Tatum’s strong performance Tuesday night – including hitting the 3-pointer with 8.5 seconds to go – was his last in a streak of them lately, coincidentally coinciding with Boston’s best part of the season. The Portland win was Boston’s sixth in the past seven games, and the Celtics have a chance to go 3-0 on this West Coast swing if they can beat their forever rivals, the Los Angeles Lakers, at Staples Center on Thursday night .
Over his last 10 games, Tatum averaged 29.4 points while shooting just under 50% of the field and just under 40% of the 3-point range – including a career-best 53 points in Boston’s win over the Minnesota Timberwolves on fridaynight. .
Perhaps some of that can be traced back to Tatum’s continued progress through the impact of COVID-19, something several of his teammates have also had to go through in recent months. Tatum pointed this out after the game to partially explain Boston’s disappointing season so far.
“I don’t think our track record shows what a team we are,” said Tatum. “I think although it has been a weird year, of course we got through some things, excuse me, a lot of things of course. Things, a lot of guys tested positive, certain guys got injured. For the most part we miss Evan [Fournier]But most guys are healthy. I just love the way we play. Every game is important at this point and we know it comes down to the game a little bit.
“Obviously we want to win. But I think for myself, for us, play the right way and feel good about ourselves. We’re not going to win every game, but I think we’re playing the right way and that is. we’re definitely trending in the right direction. “
However, Celtics coach Brad Stevens sees his young star doing the same thing he did last season around the same point, when he left in the weeks leading up to the All-Star Game in Chicago and never looked back.
“This is about the time, the number of games, where he started to rise last year,” said Stevens. “And you can see that over the past few weeks. You can see that he is really on the beat of knowing what he wants to do with a certain possession and also where his chances will come from. And again, it helps when they all four those guys have there, because then you just can’t charge it, like sometimes earlier in the year. “
Boston needed that brilliance in each of the past three games, with Tatum scoring more than 100 runs in total and reaching the free-throw line 34 times. And now that they have finally gained some momentum, the Celtics hope they can continue it.
“We’re not excited, we’re not complacent, we’re not satisfied with it,” said Marcus Smart. “It’s a beginning, the beginning of what we know to do. We’ve dug a hole for ourselves. We know we have to keep fighting, but it’s encouraging. We use that as momentum to get on and off.” “We’re building to the next game and trying to bring that same energy into the next game with these wins. And that’s really our spirit. We’re not too high on the highs, and not too low on the lows.”