In between the third and fourth quarters of the NBA All-Star Game, NBC announced that they will be showing “The Quiet Work,” a five-part documentary on Jayson Tatum’s return from the torn Achilles injury that he suffered in Game 4 of the second round playoff series against the New York Knicks.
During the pregame show of the Celtics matchup with the Los Angeles Lakers, NBC ran Episode 1 of the first part titled “Starting at Zero.” Tatum also posted the episode on his YouTube channel for everyone to see.
The episode starts out before Game 4 and shows Tatum’s thought process which is optimistic despite losing Games 1 and 2 at home. After winning Game 3, Tatum said he felt “excited” and thought he was going to have a big game. He would be correct.
The focus then shifts to Tatum’s mom, Brandy Cole, and her thoughts ahead of the game, saying, “as long as we have JT on the floor, we have a chance.”
Tatum would have 42 points, 8 rebounds, 4 assists, 4 steals, and 2 blocks on 16-28 shooting from the field and 7-16 shooting from three. He said, “It felt like one of those nights” where he was just in the zone. He continued, “I was playing that well that I thought we were going to figure this out and we were going to win.”
Then comes the 3:05 mark of the fourth quarter where the Celtics are behind 111-104 and Tatum goes down. Tatum said when he lunged for the ball, “it felt like someone kicked me.” Cole said she looked at the scoreboard and saw Jayson down and thought he just needed to get up and shake it off and it didn’t cross her mind that it was that serious sitting three or four rows away from the court.
When Nick Sang, the Celtics physical therapist and athletic trainer, saw Tatum down, he had a feeling something was different. Sang then asked Tatum if he “heard a pop” and Tatum said he could hear it and it sounded like “one of those guns that go off at a track meet.”
He remembered grabbing his leg and begging that it wasn’t something serious. As he is shown being carried off the floor, Tatum said he was in shock, scared, and everything in his life flashed before his eyes. He said, “in that moment, it felt like everything came to an end” in his NBA career. The episode then ends with a shot in a hospital with the sign reading “Surgical Check In.”
