Load management means day off for Tatum
Jayson Tatum was the only Celtic to play in every game this season — until Wednesday night. The team’s second leading scorer missed the game against the Pistons with right knee soreness, but he’ll travel with the C’s to Milwaukee and will most likely be available against the Bucks tonight.
“Jayson’s good,” said coach Brad Stevens. “He’s got a little bit of tendinitis that we just want to be very cautious with. (The medical staff will) reassess him (Thursday), but it’s not a long-term thing by any means. He’s probably more mad at us. We just want to be cautious with that.”
Meanwhile, Rob Williams (left hip edema) remains a month or so away at minimum from returning. He had a scan in the first week of this month and, said Stevens, “was progressing, so what they did was they put a three to four week plan of attack with reloading him, getting him up to speed work-wise. They’re going to see how his hip responds to that, rescan him and then determine the course of action from there. So we’re hopeful that it’s soon thereafter. I don’t anticipate anything before All-Star break. We were hopeful in the last scan, but we’re also very cautious with his recovery.”
Williams missed his 18th game with the injury Wednesday.
Sad for Cora
Stevens was saddened by the situation with now former Red Sox manager Alex
Cora, who parted ways with the team amid reports of his involvement in the MLB sign-stealing scandal.
“I mean obviously I read the report,” Stevens said. “Obviously there was going to be fallout from the report. But I know Alex well and I’ve really gotten to know him and become friends, and I feel badly for him.
“I know obviously there’s always consequences, and it sounded like based on his statement and the Red Sox statement they understood that. But that doesn’t change how vibrant he is when he walks into a room, how much he raises the energy level in a room, how good he’s been to me. So I was sad about the whole thing, really.”
Busy, busy
The Celts are in a stretch that has them playing nine games in 14 days, concluding with the meeting in Milwaukee. After that, they play every other day until the AllStar break.
The effect on the players is always examined, but that kind of run is difficult on coaches, as well.
“There’s not a day to really take a deep breath,” said Stevens. “You’re always prepping for what’s next. Usually
I try to stay ahead anyway, so these are tough stretches but it’s part of it. Everybody goes through it, and we all manage accordingly. We signed up for 82 games of it and it’s just part of it.”
Asked how he deals with it, he said, “The bottom line is I think you just need to be able to step away and be present in whatever moment you’re in — at home obviously with my kids or (wife) Tracy or friends, which, most of that stuff with friends and spending time with others, you’re doing in the offseason. But you do need to be able to manage it a little bit, and there are nights where you need to put down the computer and get away from it just in the course of these stretches. It’s a little bit tougher when you have this many games in this many days.”