Washburn After Reading
Gary Washburn’s inconvenient memory lapse on Tatum’s Game 7 ankle: When the beat guy builds an argument on a game he apparently didn’t watch
Boston Globe national NBA writer Gary Washburn offered some thoughts recently that included this recollection of the 2023 Eastern Conference Finals Game 7 against the Miami Heat:
Jayson Tatum sprained his ankle a couple of minutes in and “does not play again.” He contrasted it with Jaylen Brown being “on the damn floor,” tying it into broader points about availability in critical games (including a more recent Tatum Game 7 absence).
Problem: Tatum played 42 minutes that night.
He rolled the ankle on the first possession—landing awkwardly on Gabe Vincent after a euro-step—grimaced, stayed in initially, got some work on the bench, and returned. He finished with 14 points on 5-of-13 shooting. Everyone who watched or covered the game, including Tatum himself afterward (“I was kind of like a shell of myself… It was tough to move”), noted he was clearly compromised: limited explosiveness, swelling, reduced mobility. The Celtics’ offense looked like 4-on-5 much of the night. Miami won 103-84. Boston’s historic comeback from 3-0 fell one win short.
This wasn’t an obscure footnote or a random regular-season game from a decade ago. It was the defining, widely discussed injury moment of that playoff run, the play that, for many, sealed the series tone from the opening tip. Video circulated immediately. Postgame quotes from Tatum, Brown, Smart, and others addressed it directly. Box scores, recaps from every outlet (including the Globe’s own live coverage at the time), and the subsequent offseason chatter all treated Tatum’s limited effectiveness while playing as central.
Washburn later acknowledged the error, saying he “erred in the recollection of Game 7 three years ago,” apologized, and asked the account that clipped/posted the comments to take it down. Fair enough on the correction. Mistakes happen.
But the details matter here. This isn’t a minor numerical slip or a misspoke name. It’s the foundational fact of one of the more memorable Celtics playoff losses of the pre-championship era for the Tatum-Brown core, used to support a larger argument about who shows up. When a national NBA writer for the paper of record in the market, whose job involves covering this team, misremembers the basic outcome of that sequence, that the star stayed on the floor for the vast majority of a decisive Game 7, it raises the obvious question of how the point got constructed in the first place.
The15 has always been about the coverage more than the hot takes. Local and national media get plenty of latitude to analyze, criticize, and draw conclusions. Accuracy on observable, heavily documented events is the baseline. Building a narrative around Tatum not playing when the record (minutes played, contemporaneous reporting, player comments) shows otherwise is the kind of unforced error that undercuts the surrounding analysis, whatever its merits.
Washburn has covered the league and the Celtics for a long time. One bad recollection doesn’t erase that. But for a moment this fundamental, on a game this recent and this public, the bar shouldn’t require a post-facto apology to reset. The receipts were already public in May 2023.
So let’s don’t be forgetful like Gary when March Sadness 2027 rolls around.
The 15 