UPDATE: Jayson Tatum out today vs. Cavaliers, likely tomorrow in Chicago

On yesterday’s injury report, the Celtics listed Jayson Tatum as out for today’s home game against the Cavaliers. While the team was in Philadelphia for a two-game set against the 76ers, Tatum remained in Boston. After testing positive for the coronavirus on January 9th, he was removed from the league’s health and safety protocol on the 20th after the required ten-day minimum of inactivity and has started to ramp up for a return. “I think he’s closer rather than not,” Brad Stevens said on Friday. “He’ll work out today, tomorrow in Boston, and then we’ll go from there.”

Photo by Brian Babineau/NBAE via Getty Images

It’s a mildly curious timeline for Tatum considering the quicker return for Robert Williams. Williams tested positive on January 7th--two days before Tatum--and returned to practice on the 19th. In those twelve days away from the team, Williams did suffer some flu-like symptoms. “I woke up in sweats. One night, I [wasn’t] able to sleep. Every five seconds, I’m pulling the cover off me and putting it back on me. It was kind of tough,” Williams said of his bout with COVID-19 that included other family members testing positive, too.

In his return, Robert Williams was put on a 10-15 minutes restriction; despite being available on Wednesday, Timelord did not see the floor, but on Friday, he logged nearly sixteen minutes as the second big off the bench.

For Tatum, today marks his 15th day from a positive test. He’s reportedly been asymptomatic and yet, he’ll be out longer than Timelord. The Celtics have a home-and-road back-to-back set tonight vs. Cleveland and tomorrow night against the Bulls, so it’s probably unlikely that we’ll see him in Chicago either.

On his Snapchat, Tatum did hint that he was getting a haircut soon, so there’s that.

UPDATE:

It’s unknown what kind of minutes restriction Tatum will have vs. the Bulls.