BOSTON -- All Celtics forward Gordon Hayward wants for Christmas is the nerve pain in his left foot to go away.

Hayward, who has missed the past three games because of the issue, went through practice Tuesday and is listed as probable for Wednesday's Christmas Day matinee against the Raptors in Toronto.

Now he's hoping that, after dealing with the nerve pain for the past week, he's beginning to get to the root of a problem that has dogged him since the Celtics won in Cleveland on Nov. 5.

"It's been a long time, and something I'd been playing through," Hayward said after Tuesday's practice. "I could figure out a way to play through it, but it was progressively getting worse when I wouldn't play, so we tried to figure out solutions.

"For whatever reason we tried a solution that made it worse, and that's why I couldn't play."

Hayward said that he initially felt the pain in his left foot after that win in Cleveland, but he and the Celtics found a way to calm it down enough so he could play. Four days later, however, he suffered a broken bone in his left hand in the second quarter of Boston's win in San Antonio against the Spurs, knocking him out of action for a month.

But while he sat out and recovered from that injury, his foot continued to bother him. To make matters worse, he and the Celtics couldn't figure out what, exactly, was causing the problem.

"You don't," he said with a smile, when asked how he avoided getting frustrated. "I was frustrated, I was super frustrated. I broke my hand, and this was a different issue that when I wasn't playing you would think I could figure it out. My hand was broke. The fact that [the foot] was getting worse was frustrating everybody.

"We were calling around the country trying to figure it out. Hopefully we did."

Hayward said he's gotten three cortisone shots in the foot.

"Hopefully the third time was the charm," he said.

How he feels Wednesday morning will determine whether Hayward plays. He got the shot Monday and had no issues going through practice Tuesday.

"If he's available, then he'll start and play," Stevens said. "We'll be alert to his minutes, like we were on the first game back."

When the Celtics announced last week that Hayward was dealing with left foot soreness, it set off alarm bells because he had multiple surgeries on his left foot and leg after being injured two years ago, minutes into his first game as a member of the Celtics.

Hayward said he suspects that those injuries have something to do with what he's dealing with now.

"I think it had everything to do with the prior injury," he said. "I didn't get hurt on my right foot, so when you have a traumatic event to your foot or your ankle, things are going to change inside of there that you don't know necessarily because they don't bug you, but things start to poke their head a little bit if it gets tweaked in some way or another.

"I don't think it's a coincidence that it's my left foot."

Another Celtic on the mend is Marcus Smart, who has been out for the past six games with an eye infection that spread to both eyes. Smart has returned to practice, but coach Brad Stevens said the goal is for Smart to play sometime before the end of the calendar year.

Boston hosts the Cleveland Cavaliers on Friday and the Raptors on Saturday, before traveling to Charlotte for a game against the Hornets on New Year's Eve.

Enes Kanter also will be available for Wednesday's game. Because Kanter will be available, and the Raptors are dealing with injuries to Pascal Siakam (groin), Norm Powell (shoulder) and Marc Gasol (hamstring), the Celtics won't have center Tacko Fall active -- opting instead to activate their other two-way player, guard Tremont Waters.

"They're super small and fast," Stevens said. "Like, super-fast. They press, they zone, they mix up defenses and try to keep you off balance, so that would be a game where we would be more ball handlers and more skill."