On Tuesday, Jayson Tatum told reporters his battle with COVID-19 left him with lingering breathing issues.
“Just running up and down the court a few times, it’s easier to get out of breath or tired a lot faster,” Tatum said. “I’ve noticed that since I’ve had COVID. It’s just something I’m working on. It’s gotten better since the first game I played, but I still deal with it from time to time.”
Prior to the team’s game against the Denver Nuggets on Tuesday, Brad Stevens said the Celtics are aware of Tatum’s ongoing issues.
“Ever since he came back, we’ve tried to be on top of that and asked him to be really honest with us about that,” Stevens said. “Specifically in moments of the game, usually you can see when a guy’s feeling the effects of fatigue and you can take him out anyways. But yeah, it’s certainly something we’re aware of.”
Stevens added that Tatum loves to play and that everyone needs to work together to make sure his issues are handled. Tatum tested positive for COVID-19 in January.
“Some guys are affected and feel that effect long after the diagnosis, some guys aren’t as affected,” Stevens said. “I think that people are still learning the long-term effects. I think it’s one of the scary things about this. But it’s why I said when those guys were diagnosed with that, like my number one thing is, make sure all the heart tests are done ad nauseum, right? Just over and over, I want to make sure we’re good to go. I certainly would never want to put anybody in a position where there was any risk at all due to that. The breathing and the shortness of breath, obviously, there’s probably part of that that’s related to COVID and part of that that’s related to being off for 14 days and then having to build that back up. But certainly, we’re on top of that.”
Tatum had perhaps his worst game of the season on Sunday when the Celtics took on the Washington Wizards, scoring just six points on 3-for-14 shooting. He played only 23 minutes as the lowly Wizards blew out the Celtics. Stevens said he and Tatum talked for a while on Monday.
“You guys watched that game,” Stevens said. “That wasn’t him. I think he’ll be great [on Tuesday]. Again, I think that’s the benefit of playing one 23-minute game in the middle of this stretch is that he’ll be able to be better and feel better. He felt a lot better yesterday than I think he did on [Sunday] going into that game, and I think he’ll play well.”
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