Celtics rule Jayson Tatum out for Game 7 with knee stiffness

Zack Cox, Boston Herald on May 2, 2026

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BOSTON — The Boston Celtics added Jayson Tatum to their injury report hours before Saturday’s must-win game against the Philadelphia 76ers.

The team officially ruled Tatum out Saturday afternoon for Game 7 of the first-round playoff series at TD Garden with left knee stiffness.

Tatum dealt with what he described as stiffness in his left leg during Boston’s Game 6 loss on Thursday. He exited with four minutes remaining in the third quarter and did not return.

But he downplayed the injury after the game, saying he sat out the fourth quarter because head coach Joe Mazzulla pulled his starters with the Celtics trailing by 20 points. Tatum and Mazzulla both said he would play Saturday, and the Celtics did not list him on their initial Game 7 injury report, announcing Friday that they had “no injuries to report.”

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“He’ll play,” Mazzulla said Friday in a conference call with reporters.

Tatum, who ruptured his right Achilles tendon last May and missed the first 62 games of this season while he rehabbed, made his season debut on March 6. Since then, he’s appeared in 22 of a possible 26 games for Boston, including each of the first six games of its series against Philadelphia.

Over those six postseason contests, he averaged 23.3 points, 10.7 rebounds, 6.8 assists and 1.2 steals per game while leading all Celtics starters in plus/minus (plus-28) and net rating (plus-6.6).

The No. 2 seed Celtics built a 3-1 series lead over the seventh-seeded Sixers before losing the next two games to set up a winner-take-all finale in Boston. The winner of Game 7, which tips off at 7:30 p.m. ET on NBC, will face the New York Knicks in the Eastern Conference semifinals.

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