Jaylen Brown Reveals Celtics' Reaction to Jayson Tatum's Season-Ending Achilles Injury

Jaylen Brown opened up about how the entire Boston Celtics team reacted upon learning Jayson Tatum ruptured his Achilles late in the fourth quarter of Game 4 against the New York Knicks on Monday.

Speaking to reporters after the Celtics' Game 5 win on Wednesday, Brown explained "the air kind of left the room" when they got official word of Tatum's injury.

Brown did go on to say the Celtics banded together afterward because they didn't want to "give up" on their season.

"We didn't want to go out like that," he said. "We didn't want to make no excuses. We didn't want to come out and give up or just turn the season into what everybody else probably would expect."

The Celtics announced on Wednesday that Tatum underwent surgery to repair his Achilles injury. The expectation is he will make a full recovery, but there is no timetable for a return to game action at this point.

In addition to Tatum's injury, the Celtics losing Game 4 put their season on the brink. They fell behind 3-1 in the series and needed to win three straight games to advance.

Brown also revealed the message he and Al Hoford delivered to the team in the locker room prior to tipoff of Game 5.

"We just said to the guys, said to each other, 'Let's come out, keep an open mind,'" Brown said. "Just come out, play basketball ... and guard your ass off."

The message worked, as the Celtics played one of their best all-around games of the entire postseason with a 127-102 win.

Brown finished with 26 points and 12 assists, setting a new career-high in the latter category. Derrick White scored a game-high 34 points on 7-of-13 three-point shooting.

The Knicks were held to 35.8 percent shooting from the field. Mikal Bridges and OG Anunoby, who scored a total of 43 points in Game 4, combined for 15 points on Wednesday night.

There's still a lot of work to do for the Celtics if they want to get back to the Eastern Conference Finals, but Game 5 gave them life in the series when they could have collapsed without their best player.

The next step for Boston will be winning Game 6 at Madison Square Garden on Friday.