Jayson Tatum came back from injury at the right moment for the NBA. His sensational return just 10 months after tearing his Achilles tendon is not only remarkably fast by any reasonable standard - it also provides the league with a positive story at a time when the dominant narratives are mostly negative: a third of the league is tanking, the Chauncey Billups and Terry Rozier gambling trial is making headlines, Luka Dončić, LeBron James and the Lakers are limping along, and NCAA basketball is stealing the spotlight, as it does every March. The comeback of a core player on one of the league's most storied franchises  - one whose return instantly transforms his team into a championship contender - is exactly what the doctor prescribed.

Since every team sport in the States is played and covered with an emphasis on the individual, especially the star, the event comes with its share of soap opera elements. Throughout the shared tenure of Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, there has been underlying tension between the two, surfacing primarily in media discourse. The two are remarkably similar in profile - wing players, both capable scorers and creators. In the seasons where the Celtics fell short at the finish line, the question loomed over them: wouldn't it be better to trade one of them for a player whose skills don't overlap with the other star's?

Tatum, the younger of the two, has always been considered the more talented, the more versatile. With Brown, someone will always surface a dismissive clip questioning his shaky left-hand control, for example. Despite Brown winning Finals MVP when the Celtics won the 2024 championship against Dallas, it was Tatum who represented the United States on the Olympic team, alongside Jrue Holiday. When Kawhi Leonard was released, a third Celtic was invited in his place - Derrick White. Brown was left out. Tatum also carries the more polished public image of the two. Brown, by contrast, tends to fall into PR pitfalls - from a dispute with police over a party he threw in Beverly Hills that was broken up, to a hair dye job that ended up rubbing off on opposing players.

But the truly interesting point about Tatum's return is that the first 62 games of the 2025/26 season appear to show that Boston can function without him. The Celtics were supposed to spend a financial rebuilding year in the lottery or on the playoff fringe, after parting ways in the summer with Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porziņģis to escape the dreaded second apron. Brown was left with two other notable cornerstones - Derrick White and Payton Pritchard - and an anonymous supporting cast: names like Neemias Queta, Baylor Scheierman, rookie Hugo González, Luke Garza - filling out the rest of the roster. Even Anfernee Simons, who was decent enough, was traded to Chicago, and Nikola Vučević, who came back the other way, had yet to leave his mark in Celtics green before getting injured last night.

With that roster, Brown is putting up MVP-caliber numbers: 28.8 points, 7.2 rebounds, and 5.1 assists. He was Boston's near-exclusive one-on-one option - reflected in the second-highest usage rate in the league behind Luka Dončić - and guess what: It worked almost to perfection. Before last night's win over Dallas, 120-100, with Tatum, the Celtics sat second in the East with a 41-21 record.

 Beyond Brown's individual brilliance, this season is a masterpiece from head coach Joe Mazzulla. Tactically, he has slowed the pace (the Celtics rank last in the league in pace), run an offense with almost European discipline - carefully signaling a set play on almost every possession - while maintaining the heavy three-point volume (second in the league at 42.5 attempts per game) that has become his calling card.

Advanced metrics also speak to the quality of Mazzulla's work - second in offensive rating and sixth in defensive rating. Above all, the Celtics are regarded as a team that "doesn't beat itself" - meaning they don't give opponents extra possessions: they rank fifth in offensive rebounding at 12.9, and dead last in turnovers, also at 12.9. In other words, Mazzulla ensures his team almost always has more possessions - and therefore more chances to win.

Brown's solo success does require an asterisk, in the form of a statistical category that has persistently not been kind to him: according to Cleaning the Glass, Brown ranks last on the Celtics in on/off differential - meaning the team's performance when he's on the floor. Oddly, his net rating is -10 per 100 possessions. That number has several explanations, from significant minutes with the second unit to below-average defense, but the discourse around it has only fueled the faint sense of persecution that seems to follow Brown around.

 "I felt like I sacrificed over the years for us to be a championship-caliber team. Now we're seeing that. What I was capable of, and what I gave up," he said recently. "Our record is barely below last year's team, and that's without 4-5 key players who left." Before you reach for the tissues, it's worth remembering this is coming from a player earning north of $300 million. And yet, that didn't stop the likes of Stephen A. Smith from declaring it's now Tatum's turn to "sacrifice."

Based on the game against the Dallas Mavericks, Tatum has no such intentions. He finished with 15 points, 12 rebounds, and 7 assists, but attempted a full 16 shots (making 6). It was Brown who was forced to sacrifice this time, at least - putting up 24 points on just 17 attempts, compared to his season average of 22.1. 

Tatum did deliver an assist to Brown on a clean weakside screen play in the first quarter, ending in a three-pointer. Brown tried to return the favor with an alley-oop feed to Tatum in a 2-on-1 transition in the fourth quarter, which was missed. 

Overall, Tatum was expectedly rusty. He opened with an ugly stretch of missed jumpers from short and long range, including an airball and even a badly missed uncontested dunk. His first bucket came on a put-back dunk with 1:15 left in the first half - immediately followed by a corner three that confirmed the talent hadn't gone anywhere.

Stylistically, it was clear that Mazzulla and Boston were broadly trying to push the pace more. Fewer set plays, more open-floor 5 out situations, pick-and-roll action from the top of the key, and Flare screens for one of the two stars. The pace will likely rise, though not dramatically - even last season, with their stronger roster, the Celtics ranked 29th in the league.

Watch: The Boston Celtics Playbook against The Mavericks

After struggling through long stretches of the game, Boston eventually took control in the closing minutes of the third quarter, against a team busy tanking and developing Cooper Flagg at point guard. This week, however, brings three significant tests for the Celtics and Tatum: first against an improving Cleveland Cavaliers squad - a direct rival for second in the East - and then matchups against the two best teams in the West, Oklahoma City and San Antonio. After those games, sharper conclusions can be drawn about the Tatum-Brown pairing, and about grafting a star back onto a roster that functioned beautifully without him. 

One thing is clear: a franchise that brings back a player less than a year after the most devastating injury in basketball believes he can beat any of those teams in the playoffs — and bring home a title.