NEW YORK — The collection of Celtics players who spoke with reporters after Monday’s nightmare at Madison Square Garden didn’t yet know the extent of Jayson Tatum’s lower leg injury.

But all seemed to be bracing for bad news.

“It’s tough,” Boston co-star Jaylen Brown said. He then paused for seven seconds before adding: “There’s not really a lot to say.”

Tatum, the Celtics’ franchise centerpiece and one of the NBA’s most durable superstars, had to be carried off the court by team staffers and whisked through the bowels of MSG in a wheelchair after suffering a non-contact injury in his right ankle/calf late in Boston’s 121-113 loss to the New York Knicks.

“He stayed on the ground for a while,” Kristaps Porzingis said. “I don’t know, but it didn’t look good. We’re hoping for the best.”

The injury threatened not just Tatum’s availability for the rest of the Eastern Conference semifinals, which the Celtics now trail 3-1, but potentially his entire 2025-26 season if an MRI set for Tuesday reveals the worst-case diagnosis of a torn Achilles tendon.

Al Horford, Tatum’s teammate for all but two of the latter’s eight NBA seasons, said he felt “shocked” as he addressed the media in a silent Celtics locker room.

“I mean, at this point, I’m concerned about Jayson,” Horford said. “That’s the most important to me. The game stuff, we’ll address it. But I’m just hoping that he’s OK.”

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Derrick White had a similar reaction.

“Obviously, that’s our brother, and you hate to see him go down,” White said. “We just know the type of guy he is, and it’s just tough to see him go down. But obviously, right now, it’s pretty low because of the game, and we just got to find a way to win Game 5.”

Before his injury, Tatum put together one of the best playoff performances of his Celtics career, racking up 42 points, eight rebounds, four assists, four steals and two blocks in 40 minutes. But Boston again was unable to protect a double-digit third-quarter lead — this one a 14-point advantage three minutes into the second half — and Tatum’s night ended in pain when he dove for a loose ball that had been poked out of Brown’s grasp by Knicks wing Mikal Bridges.

It was the latest on a growing list of Celtics ailments — Brown, Porzingis, Jrue Holiday and Sam Hauser all have been sidelined or limited this postseason, and Tatum missed a first-round game with a bone bruise in his wrist — and by far the most damaging, barring a surprisingly favorable MRI result.

“Obviously, you’re always worried about someone’s health,” head coach Joe Mazzulla said. “So the fact that he had to be carried off — he’s the type of guy that he gets right up. He didn’t. And we’ll know (Tuesday) exactly what it is, but yeah. I mean, it’s tough to watch a guy like him get carried off like that.”

Tatum, owner of the richest contract in NBA history, likely will be named to his fourth consecutive All-NBA first team later this month, and he leads all Celtics players in points, rebounds, assists and steals this postseason, even after struggling in Games 1 and 2 against New York. He’s played in 121 of a possible 122 playoff games since he entered the league in 2016, averaging 39.0 minutes per contest.

Porzingis, who’s been slowed by recurring symptoms from a lingering viral illness, expressed confidence in the Celtics’ depth, but he acknowledged that winning without Tatum would be a tall task.

“We have the talent,” Porzingis said. “We have a lot of talent. Even with JT out, even me maybe playing 10-15 minutes, we have the guys, and we’ve shown in the past that we can play still really good basketball. Obviously, there’s no replacement for this guy, no? Like, this is a big hit for us, 100%. But again, we have to play with the hand we’re dealt right now, and this is it.”

Climbing out of their current hole would be a monumental challenge even at full strength. Of the 293 teams in NBA history that fell behind 3-1 in a best-of-seven playoff series, just 13 (4.4%) went on to win and advance, with zero such comebacks since 2020. The Celtics’ bid for back-to-back championships appears all but dead. The hope now is that the damage from Tatum’s injury will be limited to this season and not affect his availability for the upcoming fall.

“I think everybody’s concerned with Jayson,” Brown said. “I’m not sure how bad it is. Didn’t look great. But I think everybody is kind of more concerned with that. Obviously, the loss is huge. But we’ve got to get ready for Game 5, so we’ll take the night and pick our heads up tomorrow and put together a game plan to come out on our own floor to keep this series alive.”