Devin Carter is back around the Celtics, even if he still isn’t cleared to play.
Bobby Manning reports for CLNS Media, via Twitter, that Carter has rejoined the team after a bout of mononucleosis kept him out for the start of the season. He’s back in the locker room and spending time with teammates again, but he remains unavailable while he finishes recovering.
Boston brought in the 24-year-old guard on an Exhibit 10 contract before later converting it to a two-way deal ahead of the season opener. Carter, originally selected 13th overall by the Kings in the 2024 Draft, entered the league with a defensive reputation, but injuries and an inconsistent offensive game made it hard for him to carve out rotation minutes.
Elsewhere on the Celtics front, Payton Pritchard has quietly become one of the franchise’s most trusted names over his seven seasons in Boston - and now he’s earned a new label. According to Hallie Grossman of ESPN, he’s the team’s “iso king.”
Pritchard led the NBA in effective field goal percentage in isolation situations last season, which tracks with the obsessive offseason work he puts into sharpening his game. Even Allen Iverson has taken notice, calling him “the coldest white boy I’ve ever seen.”
And with Jaylen Brown gone, that isolation scoring matters even more for a Celtics group with fewer ball handlers and less of the familiar hunt-for-threes style that helped power its regular-season run in recent years.
Jayson Tatum’s comeback keeps taking shape after the Achilles rupture he suffered in the 2025 playoffs. On Tuesday, he punctuated it with a buzzer-beating game-winner in overtime against the Nets, and he didn’t hide what that moment meant to him afterward, Jay King writes for The Athletic.
“ That was a hell of a feeling, just kind of getting back to doing things that I used to do before I was injured,” Tatum said. “ And sharing that moment with my teammates on the court, seeing them rally and be excited for me.”
It was his first 40-point game since the injury, and his 42 minutes were also a post-injury high. Tatum said, “ I’m 18 months out from when I tore my Achilles,” Tatum said.
“ And there’s certain moments throughout a game, on and off the ball, where I’m doing a cut or exploding or just doing something that something in my mind clicks, and like ‘Oh, you know, that feeling is really starting to feel like, you know, pre-injury.’ And results, make or miss the shot, I get really excited about some of the movements that I make throughout the game.”
Brown, meanwhile, is still drawing attention even though he’s no longer in Boston. Questions about whether he pushed for a trade - something his representation denied - and his postgame remarks have kept the split between the two stars in the conversation. Chris Mannix of Sports Illustrated wrote that Brown’s line, “There’s no beef, but it might be a little lamb chops and gravy,” has left people around the league puzzled, though he added the reasons behind the disagreement are straightforward enough to identify.
In Other News...
Jayson Tatum Just Delivered A Celtics Reminder In Crunch Time
Jayson Tatum spent 42 minutes reminding everyone why the Celtics can still lean on him when a game turns chaotic, and Boston needed every bit of it in a 125-124 overtime win over the Nets. He was efficient, steady and all over the stat sheet, piling up 40 points on 50% shooting with eight assists, five rebounds and a block while keeping his turnover count at zero.
The performance also pushed Tatum deeper into the Celtics record book, where he added more franchise marks tied to scoring, playmaking and efficiency. Paul George, meanwhile, also left his mark by setting a Celtics record for steals per game, but the lasting image from this one was Tatum taking control when the game was hanging in the balance. [Read more 🡒]
Mitchell Robinson Sparks Tense Celtics Flashpoint In Tight Nets Battle
A tense moment briefly overtook TD Garden in the first half when Celtics center Mitchell Robinson got into a verbal exchange that pulled players and coaches toward the Nets bench. The back-and-forth gave an otherwise tight game a jolt, and Robinson was already having a solid first-half impact with seven points and three rebounds by halftime.
The incident also came with a technical foul for Robinson, adding another layer to a game that already had a competitive edge to it. Boston carried an 86-82 lead into the fourth quarter, with the kind of playoff-style friction that can linger as the game gets late. [Read more 🡒]
Celtics Have A Payton Pritchard Debate That Could Grow Fast
Payton Pritchard has settled into the kind of role that has become valuable to the Celtics in recent years, coming off the bench as a spark and helping drive the offense in the minutes that often decide games. He was a key part of Bostons 2024 title run, then followed that by winning Sixth Man of the Year the next season, which only sharpened the conversation around how much the Celtics should be using him.
Joe Mazzulla appears content to keep Pritchard in that sixth-man lane, with Jordan Walsh getting the start instead, but the debate is starting to bubble up for a reason. When the Celtics are short-handed, there is a clear case for giving Pritchard more runway with the first group, and his shot creation has become too important to treat as a luxury no matter where he enters the game. [Read more 🡒]