Jayson Tatum reacts to latest injury scare in off night vs Magic

Jayson Tatum needs to be better than he was in Game 1 against the Magic, if the Celtics want to win a second straight championship. He also needs to stay on the court in the first place.

It appears that that will not remotely be a concern, after it appeared for a moment that Tatum could have suffered a serious injury in Sunday's 103-86 win at TD Garden. Tatum took a hard foul from Orlando's Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, who was assessed a flagrant 1 foul on the play, and writhed in pain for a moment. That's nothing new with NBA stars tumbling to the floor, but you can never rule out that the boy who cried wolf was right this time.

Tatum had his wrist taped up and stayed in the game, then seemed to feel fine about his situation when he talked to reporters after the game.

"It's alright, just fell on it, landed on it," said Tatum, who added that a postgame X-ray came back clean. "Just throbbing for a second, kind of went away."

Tatum missed both ensuing free throws after Caldwell-Pope's foul hurt his wrist. He did end up shooting 3-of-5 for the rest of the game after the injury, so it doesn't seem that the wrist bothered him.

Despite the encouraging finish, Tatum finished the game shooting just 36.4% overall (8-of-22) and netting a relatively disappointing 17 points. He struggled from three, going just 1-of-8 from beyond the arc. As the well-rounded superstar is typically able to do, Tatum did contribute in other ways. He pulled down a Boston-best 14 rebounds and played strong defense, as evidenced by a team-high plus-23.

Tatum is fortunate to have apparently avoided a serious wrist injury. He won't have an excuse to not improve his shooting in Game 2 and beyond.