Kevin Garnett wasn’t a fan of Jayson Tatum missing Game 7

Although Jayson Tatum appeared to tweak something in his leg during the Celtics’ Game 6 loss to the Sixers last week, he and the team expressed no concerns about his availability heading into the crucial Game 7 on May 2.

“You all probably saw when I stepped back,” Tatum said after Game 6. “So, I was on the bike. My leg was a little stiff when I came out in the third quarter. But just assessing the moment, like, the game was a little out of reach. We took the key guys out.”

“I mean he said he was playing right?” Joe Mazzola said of Tatum the next day. “He will play.”

But, after Boston filed a clean injury report on Friday, Tatum was deemed “questionable” Saturday afternoon due to “stiffness in the left knee” — roughly six hours before the game at TD Garden. Before the game, Tatum was ruled out, and Boston eventually fell to Philly, 109-100, in a season-ending defeat.

Speaking on the latest episode of the “KG Certified” podcast with fellow Celtics great Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett admitted he was “shocked” when he saw Tatum ruled out of Boston’s final game of the year.

“I can tell you now that if the midfielder thought I was playing and I came on 30 minutes earlier and said I wasn’t playing, that would be… [expletive] “Devastating the locker room,” Garnett said. “I’m just talking about now as professionals, they have to adapt, like, ‘OK, who’s next?’ You’re about to throw away the scraps and one of your best scrappers is not here. This is a blow to morale here. This is a blow to camaraderie. I was shocked.”

“When I saw that, in the first two minutes of that game, I saw the bench,” Garnett added. “I watched the morale. I just wanted to see how they would react to that emotion. Would it lift them up? I thought they did the best they could with the best they had. They left it there. Philadelphia was the better team.”

Despite Garnett’s comments, Tatum had already been ruled out long before the game even began, with the final injury report dropping two hours before the game began. Even if Tatum’s availability wasn’t exactly in doubt in Boston’s locker room right before warmups, his absence was felt against the Sixers.

Despite the frustrations rooted in a first-round exit with Boston initially holding a 3-1 lead over Philly, Pierce pushed back against some of Garnett’s frustrations — noting that playing Tatum in that game wasn’t worth the risk, especially coming off a torn Achilles tendon last May.

“They made a long-term decision,” Pierce said of Boston’s decision to hire Tatum. “We’ve seen it happen too many times. … We’ve seen it happen with too many guys who have dealt with calf or knee pain.” [pain]. …that’s what they do.

Speaking to reporters last week, Tatum said the Celtics made the decision to cut Tatum, noting that he felt as if he could have continued playing had Boston punched its ticket to the next round of the playoffs.

“I had some trouble there.” Tatum said about his knee. “It was unfortunate timing, but I think it was a bit to be expected. I was away for ten and a half months and then I came back and played every day.”

“I play for 36-40 minutes, so it’s not unusual for something to happen. It was kind of difficult because the rehab was going well the whole time. I think it was inevitable that I would have to deal with something, and it came at the worst time.”

Connor Ryan is a staff writer covering the Bruins, Celtics, Patriots and Red Sox for Boston.com, a role he has held since 2023.