Boston Celtics guard Derrick White became his own dentist during the 2024 NBA Finals, he revealed to Jimmy Fallon.
White, 31, memorably chipped a tooth during the Celtics’ series-clinching win over the Dallas Mavericks. With the help of the Boston staff, he emerged later after gluing the tooth back in his mouth.
“I go to the game, I get hit in the mouth. I had a bridge on at the time and it came out, so I just picked it up and went straight to the back,” he recalled on the Wednesday, March 18, episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. “I’m not a hockey player, so I had to figure out a way to glue it back together.”
He continued, “So they just kind of glued it and then I put a mouthpiece on it, played the rest of the game and eventually went to the dentist the next day.”
White added that he had been putting off seeing the dentist for too long, and when Fallon, 51, asked how his doctor reacted, the former first-round pick laughed.
“He said, ‘I told you to come a week ago,’” White said.
When the Celtics’ championship celebration died down, White eventually made it into the office, sharing his experience with Boston Dental via social media.
“I spent, like, two hours [there],” he told NBC Sports Boston. “Then, I had to go back for, like, an hour. Now, we’ve got a little temporary fix for tonight. Shout-out to Boston Dental, y’all clutch.”
Little did White know at the time, but he wouldn’t be the most memorable American athlete to lose a tooth in pursuit of a championship for long. Team USA’s Jack Hughes joined him at the 2026 Winter Olympics, taking a stick to the mouth in the third period of the gold medal game.
Hughes, 24, ultimately scored the game-winning goal in overtime, with his newly created smile becoming one of the enduring images of the games.
“Yeah, the amount of dentists that have reached out, man, it’s too many,” Hughes told the Daily Mail earlier this month. “But I’m going to get them fixed, hopefully this week.”
“I think people will be pissed if I do get them fixed,” he added.
Like White, Hughes also recalled the incident in an appearance on Fallon.
“I just remember [my brother] Quinn, he was the first guy closest to me, and I remember him coming up to me at the TV timeout and he’s like, ‘It’s not that bad, it’s only chipped,’” he said.
