Jason Tatum Just Went Down With An Unfortunate Right Lower Leg Injury

Jason Tatum just went down with an unfortunate non-contact right lower leg injury and in this blog we’ll talk about my concern for what is likely a very significant injury for the Celtics star player. Welcome back everybody, I’m Dr. Brian Suter and the goal in this channel is to teach more about the medical side of the sports world and I’m going to just get right to it here.

I think everybody is equally concerned about the likelihood of an Achilles tendon rupture for Tatum. Now, we don’t see a to where we can actually really look specifically and see that recoil of the gastrocnemius muscle that we often will see with an Achilles rupture. But the mechanism of how he pushes off, this is going to be an Achilles tendon injury until proven otherwise.

Here as Tatum is going after this loose ball, keep an eye on his right leg because it’s the right leg that we’re gonna be worried about. And in this position, we see beforehand, he steps backwards. So right there, he steps that right leg backwards behind him.

And that is going to put his ankle into dorsiflexion, meaning his toes are pointed upwards towards the tibia, and similar to what we saw with Damien Lillard, that puts an eccentric load on the Achilles. That puts this stretch, the tendon, the Achilles gastroc complex is lengthening because of that dorsiflexion, pulling the foot up, moves the calcaneus down, stretches the Achilles tendon, and then as he goes to push, you get this sudden contraction with an eccentrically loaded tendon, and that is going to put it at risk of failure.

And in this case, I’d be concerned about the Achilles. Same thing that we’re seeing in this view from above. We pay attention to that right leg. Tatum steps backwards here, right there. He’s going into that dorsiflexion that puts his strets on the Achilles tendon.

And then as he goes to explode and push off, we see him go down and then immediately start grabbing at that portion of his ankle right near the Achilles. As he’s down then, of course, right away, we saw him grabbing at that area again.

If this were something more mild, like a calf strain, like a muscle injury, we would expect him to see the grab up here more at the gastrocnemius. But the fact that he’s grabbing at that Achilles, we saw that eccentric load with that dorsiflexed ankle position. I am absolutely concerned about an unfortunate Achilles tendon rupture. Let’s talk briefly about our digital anatomy tool here, just to again understand what makes up the Achilles.

We’re going to have the muscle contribution from the medial and lateral heads of the gastrocnemius. That’s what makes up the primary bulk of your calf muscle. Deep to that, you’re gonna have the soleus muscle, and then you’re also going to have the really thin muscle called the plantaris. Those all come together, form the Achilles tendon, and then the Achilles tendon is of course going to go down and insert on the back of the calcaneus, the heel bone.

Jason Tatum Just Went Down

That dorsiflexed position, the ankle is pointed up in this direction, so that’s gonna put tension on the Achilles, put tension on the calf, and then as he forcibly pushes off, you get additional load going through Achilles, and most of the time, whenever you have one of these injuries, it’s going to be right down here in this mid portion of the Achilles tendon.

That tends to be the weaker spot. There’s not as ideal of blood flow. We call this like a watershed area. And so most likely mid portion Achilles tendon rupture is going to be the area of concern. Now, remember with these types of injuries, there’s something called the Thompson test where back in the locker room, they’re going to put him down prone on his stomach. They’re going to have him bend his knee up to 90 degrees.

They’re going to squeeze his calf muscle. And if you don’t see any movement in the ankle, that’s a positive Thompson test. That’s very, very highly suggestive of an Achilles tendon rupture. They very well could have ultrasound there in the locker room to also put an ultrasound probe down and look at this. So I’m recording this now.

The game is nearly completed. I can almost guarantee the medical staff knows if he’s had an Achilles rupture. So we’ll probably be hearing something probably in the minutes to come. If we don’t hear anything immediately tonight, that’s a good sign. But again, concern of course is for an Achilles.