Jayson Tatum said he is not 100% back. Boston then played him 42 minutes.
That is the whole tension of the Celtics' 108-100 Game 3 win over Philadelphia. Tatum's words still belong to recovery. His job description already belongs to April. He scored 25, made 5 of 9 from three, and joined Jaylen Brown in supplying 19 of Boston's 29 fourth-quarter points as the Celtics moved ahead 2-1 in the series.
There is a difference between being back on the floor and being back inside a team's playoff math. Boston has crossed into the second category. The Celtics are not merely using Tatum as a threat who can space the floor and survive a matchup. They are leaning on him as a closer, a pressure release, and a player whose shot-making can keep a game from tilting toward a Philadelphia team that had a fourth-quarter lead for the second straight game.
That makes the current Celtics shape both impressive and uneasy. Tatum does not have to claim peak form for Boston to require peak responsibility from him. In Game 3, those two timelines overlapped anyway.
The cleanest read is not that Tatum erased every concern. It is that Boston trusted the version it had. Against a Sixers team that kept making the night uncomfortable, that was enough. The question now is how long enough can carry the same workload.