- Celtics rookie Jordan Walsh, the 38th pick of last year’s draft, made his regular season debut on Wednesday after spending much of the season playing for the team’s NBA G League affiliate in Maine, per Souichi Terada of MassLive.com. “For me personally, it’s been easy knowing that I’m in the best team, the best organization there is in the NBA right now,” Walsh said. “So, keeping that in my mind, knowing that the time is coming, it’s a process for everybody. I’m just at this point in my process, and hopefully by the end of this process, I’ll be where I want to be. And that’s kind of like how I approach every day, just wanting to get to that final end goal.”
Meeting with reporters in his return to Boston tonight, Rockets coach Ime Udoka expressed regret that he wasn’t able to stay with the Celtics long enough to lead them to a championship, writes Tim Bontemps of ESPN. Udoka took Boston to the NBA Finals in 2022, but he was suspended shortly before the start of last season over an affair with a staff member. Joe Mazzulla was named the team’s permanent head coach before the season ended.
“Job not finished,” Udoka responded when asked to look back on his lone season with the Celtics. “[I] formed a lot of relationships within a year, and obviously want to get a chance to run it back with a group you feel you can build and grow with. So, letting the people down. I talked about the players, the relationships I built with them, the coaches that came with me, and then everybody else that was impacted by it. So for me that’s the biggest thing I would say overall is letting some people down, for sure. But we’ve talked it out and I’ve seen a lot of these people throughout the summer and talk regularly and so we move past it.”
Udoka received a mixed response from fans at TD Garden, according to Bontemps. The game marked the first matchup between Udoka and Mazzulla, his former assistant, but Bontemps says both coaches downplayed its significance.
“Obviously, the fact that Ime is back, that’s great,” Mazzulla said. “We worked together, and guys on the staff, but I don’t think that really has anything to do with winning or losing.”
There’s more from Boston:
- Some Celtics players complained last season that they were kept in the dark about the reasons for Udoka’s suspension and dismissal, but Udoka contends that’s not accurate, according to Adam Himmelsbach of The Boston Globe. Udoka told reporters he was “upfront” with his players and explained the situation to some of them. “I would say they lied to [the media],” Udoka said. “They knew, some of them knew and, you know, obviously I could talk to them and they wouldn’t share stuff publicly. So, who needed to know, knew.”
- Jayson Tatum got ejected early in the fourth quarter tonight even though the Celtics had a huge lead at the time, per Souichi Terada of MassLive. Tatum was angry after not getting a foul call on a dunk attempt. “At some point throughout the course of the night, you’ve got to stand up for yourself,” he explained. “It’s not an every game thing or every night, but I’m not perfect. I’m going to get techs throughout every season. Tonight I just had to kind of let him know how I felt and that was that. I wasn’t holding no grudge or anything after the game. I wasn’t kicking (expletive) over in the locker room. I’m not holding no grudge. It happened, we move on, and we get ready for the next one.”
- Luke Kornet is in front of Neemias Queta on the depth chart because Mazzulla has more trust in Kornet’s defense, Brian Robb of MassLive states in a mailbag column.
- Rockets coach Ime Udoka returns to the TD Garden tonight for the first time since leading the Celtics to the 2022 NBA Finals, notes Chris Forsberg of NBC Sports Boston. Udoka has maintained close ties with his former players, but this marks their first on-court meeting since he was suspended and ultimately replaced by Joe Mazzulla. “I saw Ime a couple of times this summer. That’s somebody I got a really, really good relationship with. Talk to him all the time,” Jayson Tatum said. “I’m happy for him that he’s gotten this new opportunity. I think they’re going to see a lot of improvement with that team, right? They got some new talent, some new guys, so that helps. Playing against him is going to be a little weird. It’s going to be the first head coach that I’ve had to play against that I had. So it’s going to be different.”
Coby White is in the midst of a career year and a bounce-back season with the Bulls, averaging 18.5 points in 39 games (all starts) after registering 9.7 PPG across 74 games (two starts) in 2022/23. Head coach Billy Donovan spoke highly of White’s season, suggesting the fifth-year guard is on an All-Star trajectory, according to the Chicago Sun-Times’ Joe Cowley.
“I think Coby going forward, if he can continue to stay on this path, he’ll be a guy that will be considered for an All-Star Game,” Donovan said. “I think he’s got that kind of ability. I think the other thing that’s come out is his leadership. He’s got an ability to lead. And I would consider him still moving into his prime.”
White, who averaged 22.6 points in December, ranks third on the team in scoring, behind six-time All-Star DeMar DeRozan and two-time All-Star Zach LaVine. The UNC product isn’t just scoring the ball a lot — he’s doing it at an efficient clip, shooting career highs of 44.9% from the field and 40.2% from deep (7.3 attempts). Additionally, he’s second on the team in assists per game (4.9, a career best).
“I think what happened early on is that it’s really hard to be a leader when you’re one-dimensional, and he was a one-dimensional player,” Donovan said of White early in his career. “Because he’s become so multidimensional, it’s a lot easier leading. When you’re in there rebounding and you’re defending — I mean, he never took charges. He’s taking charges now.
“When you start doing all those things, you have a much bigger voice where you can start holding other players accountable because you’re doing the things yourself and you would expect others to do those along with you. All those things, he can be a great piece for us.”
We have more from the Central Division:
- LaVine recently returned from a 17-game absence and has played three games, all Bulls victories, since his return. After recording 25 points, 13 rebounds, seven assists and three steals in Chicago’s latest win over the Rockets, LaVine spoke about his return to play to reporters. “I’m just happy we’re winning,” LaVine said (Twitter link via The Athletic’s Darnell Mayberry. “I’m going out there giving guys a little boost, hopefully defensively. And offensively, obviously [on] that side of the floor being a weapon people have to worry about.“
- Celtics guard Jrue Holiday is making his return to Fiserv Forum on Thursday where he played in front of Bucks fans as a member of the organization for three seasons. The Bucks won the 2021 title with Holiday and fans showed him love with an ovation on Thursday (Twitter link via The Athletic’s Eric Nehm). However, Holiday was all business when asked about the topic before traveling there. “So to be able to go back to Milwaukee should be fun,” Holiday said via The Athletic’s Jay King (Twitter link). “I was there for three years and we did great things there but I’m on to better things.“
- Cavaliers forward Max Strus left Cleveland’s Thursday game against the Nets in the first quarter and did not return with what the team said was right knee soreness, according to The Athletic’s Joe Vardon (Twitter link). The Cavaliers don’t play again until Monday, so it’s possible Strus is good to go for that game. Sam Merrill started the second half in place of Strus on Thursday and finished with six points and nine rebounds in 32 minutes.
- In an interview with Marc J. Spears of Andscape, Rockets coach Ime Udoka says he still has strong relationships with his former Celtics players, even though they were only together for one season. Udoka will return to Boston on Sunday for the first time since being suspended and ultimately replaced as head coach. “My [Celtics] players will reach out and talk about how proud they are about what we’re doing and then vice versa. I see what they’re doing as well,” Udoka said. “The biggest piece from just being there for only one season was those relationships we formed. And some of those guys I’ll talk to for the rest of our lives. And so, there is a close bond and you look back at what could have been, but also understand the impact you had and the relationships [you] will continue to have going forward.”
Celtics wing Jaylen Brown and head coach Joe Mazzulla weren’t happy about the reversal of a foul call in the closing seconds of Monday’s 133-131 loss to Indiana. As Adam Himmelsbach of The Boston Globe details, with the scored tied at 131 and three seconds to play, Buddy Hield was initially whistled for a foul on Brown’s shot attempt (video link), but the call was overturned after the Pacers challenged it.
While Mazzulla was clearly irritated, he didn’t have much to say in his postgame presser, according to Himmelsbach, who notes that the Celtics coach repeatedly referred to waiting until Tuesday afternoon to see what the league has to say in its Last Two Minute report. Mazzulla also mentioned that Hield admitted to him that he thought he fouled Brown.
“I mean, I told Joe what I told Joe,” Hield said. “But they have three refs out there and they had the replay center, and that’s what replay is for, I guess. I was thinking I might have hit (Brown) a little bit, but they have three refs out there and they have cameras and they slow down the angles of it. I felt like it was not excessive contact. I know I touched the ball, I maybe nicked Brown in the head a little bit. I’m not too sure.”
Brown was more vocal in expressing his frustration and was upset in particular because he was told by referee James Williams that the replay hadn’t shown Hield hitting him in the head. The Celtics star said he thought the call should be the subject of an investigation.
“That’s what pissed me off, because I know I got hit in the head,” Brown said. “And you see on the replay, it’s pretty obvious I got hit in the head. Then you look me in my eye and tell me that I didn’t. I think that needs to be investigated. Cost my team a game and of course I’m pissed about it.”
Here’s more on the Celtics:
- Although the 2023/24 salaries for Luke Kornet, Dalano Banton, Svi Mykhailiuk, and Lamar Stevens will now be fully guaranteed, that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll finish the season in Boston, a source tells Brian Robb of MassLive.com. Robb suggests it’s possible that one or more of those players could be used for salary-matching purposes in a trade. It’s also worth noting that attaching a future second-round pick or some cash to one (or more) of them would allow the team to reduce its projected luxury tax bill.
- After signing a super-max extension over the summer, Jaylen Brown entered this season looking to improve his play on defense and said he wanted each member of Boston’s starting five to earn All-Defensive votes. As Chris Forsberg of NBC Sports Boston details, Brown has delivered on his personal goal so far, with advanced statistics suggesting he has been one of the NBA’s better defensive players in the first half of 2023/24.
- Celtics star Jayson Tatum missed Monday’s loss due to what the team called left ankle sprain injury management. Tatum also sat out games on December 20 and 29 as a result of that left ankle issue, so it appears that the club is just being cautious with his workload. Kristaps Porzingis, meanwhile, was back in action on Monday after leaving Saturday’s contest early due to an eye issue.
Speaking to Jay King of The Athletic and other reporters this week, Celtics president of basketball operations Brad Stevens suggested that the team’s trade options at this season’s deadline will be limited, since Boston only has six players earning north of $5MM this season and all of them are starters or key rotation pieces.
As a result, the Celtics’ $6.2MM traded player exception is “really the No. 1 tool” the club has at its disposal as it explores the trade market, according to Stevens, who cautions that the exception is “not big.”
“It’s a small number of people (who would fit into the exception),” Stevens said, per King. “A lot of the people that are in that (salary tier) were signed to minimums or smaller contracts, or are on their rookie scale deals that teams aren’t exactly excited to move on from yet. So it’s a very small group of people, but we’re going to exhaust it, we’re going to look at it.”
Players whose salaries don’t fit into that trade exception may not be realistic trade targets for the Celtics.
For instance, in the latest episode of his No Cap Room podcast (Twitter video link), Jake Fischer of Yahoo Sports mentions Raptors big man Chris Boucher as a player Boston has liked for a while. But without giving up one of their top six players, the Celtics would have to send out at least five smaller salaries for matching purposes in a deal for Boucher and his $11.75MM salary, which likely isn’t viable.
Here’s more on the Celtics:
- While Stevens didn’t rule out the possibility of acquiring another big man, he said he’s been happy with what the Celtics have gotten from their frontcourt players and would be more inclined to add one more big wing who could crack the rotation or simply provide depth, according to King. “And I think that could be from within,” Stevens said, “and I also think that we’ll continue to monitor free agency and trades.”
- If the Celtics do add another frontcourt player, they’d want someone who would happy to accept a very limited role, according to Stevens: “What you look at is guys that can play, guys that can add value but, like I said last year, don’t need to play. They are over themselves, and I think that that’s important. That’s what we have right now, and we’ve gotten obviously good play out of … great play out of Kristaps (Porzingis), I think Al (Horford)‘s been good. I think Luke (Kornet) and (Neemias Queta), when called upon, have both added great value.”
- Queta, who is on a two-way contract, has been a pleasant surprise off the bench and could be a candidate later in the season to get a promotion to the standard roster. However, he’s still eligible to play in 37 more games as a two-way player, and it doesn’t sound like the Celtics are in any rush to fill their final 15-man roster spot by converting his contract, per Brian Robb of MassLive.com. “We have discussions every day about how we’re going to move forward with those other spots on our roster,” Stevens said. “We have one open spot right now. You have to carry 14. I think it’s helpful to go into a trade deadline or whatever with a little bit of flexibility from a roster standpoint.”
- Fifth-year wing Oshae Brissett hasn’t played a significant role off the bench for the Celtics this season, but he has gotten more opportunities as of late, including 20 minutes of action in Saturday’s victory over Indiana. Brissett had eight points and eight rebounds against his former team, notes Dustin Dopirak of The Indianapolis Star. “I was extremely happy for him, just building off of what he did (Friday) night at Utah,” Jayson Tatum said. “I know (the win over the Jazz) was a blowout, but I can only imagine a team trading you and you get to come back and you want to play good against them, you want to beat them. He was a big part of that success we had in the fourth quarter, just creating second and third chance opportunities. That was big for us.”
Echoing recent reporting from Adrian Wojnarowski, Jake Fischer of Yahoo Sports confirms that the Hawks are “certainly open for business” ahead of the trade deadline and says Atlanta has been one of the NBA’s most active teams in recent trade conversations.
According to Fischer, the Hawks have told multiple teams in recent discussions that the only untouchable players on their roster are guard Trae Young and forward Jalen Johnson. Notably missing from that group is guard Dejounte Murray, whom Atlanta has “made widely available,” sources tell Yahoo Sports.
While the pairing of Murray and Young in their backcourt hasn’t been as successful as the Hawks hoped, the former Spur would presumably still have significant value on the trade market, in large part due to the relatively team-friendly four-year extension he signed during the offseason. That deal, which begins in 2024/25, can be worth up to $120MM with incentives.
Pointing out that the Hawks control their own 2024 first-round pick and owe their 2025 first-rounder to San Antonio, Fischer suggests that it’s possible the team will move some veterans this year, add a 2024 lottery pick to a core headed by Young and Johnson, and look to get back to the playoffs next season.
Here’s more from Fischer:
- The Knicks made some calls to potential trade partners about veteran big men following Mitchell Robinson‘s injury, per Fischer, but after they added Precious Achiuwa in their trade with Toronto, rival executives now think the Knicks may be more focused on exploring backcourt trade targets ahead of the deadline. Fischer mentions Alec Burks of the Pistons and Malcolm Brogdon of the Trail Blazers as a couple possibilities, though it’s unclear if New York has actually expressed interest in either player.
- The Wizards have let teams know that they’re open to trading veterans for draft assets, sources tell Fischer. That list of veterans may include Kyle Kuzma, who signed a new four-year contract with the club last summer, though there’s a sense that Washington would seek multiple first-rounders for the forward, Fischer writes.
- The Celtics are expected to hang onto big man Luke Kornet through this weekend’s salary guarantee date, according to Fischer, who says that the team’s other non-guaranteed players – Svi Mykhailiuk, Dalano Banton, and Lamar Stevens – are also more likely than not to stick around through that deadline. Fischer adds that rival front offices are preparing for Boston to explore trades that improve the team’s bench.
- In case you missed it, we also rounded up a few Pascal Siakam-related rumors from Fischer in a separate story.
Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla and Clippers head coach Tyronn Lue have been named the Coaches of the Month for December, the NBA announced (via Twitter).
Mazzulla, the Eastern Conference winner, led Boston to a 12-2 record last month. The Celtics have the best record in the NBA at 26-7.
While Mazzulla’s group has looked like a championship contender throughout its first 33 games, Lue’s Clippers had a rocky start after trading for James Harden, losing six straight at one point to hold a 3-7 record.
But L.A. has had an impressive turnaround over the past several weeks, going 18-5 over the past 23 games, including an 11-2 record in December. Harden shook off some early rust and has been playing at an extremely high level of late (20.1 PPG, 4.9 RPG, 9.4 APG, 1.4 SPG and 1.2 BPG on .483/.467/.883 shooting over the past 17 contests), and Kawhi Leonard has been dominant on both ends of the court.
According to the NBA (Twitter link), the other nominees in the Eastern Conference were J.B. Bickerstaff, Adrian Griffin, Nick Nurse and Erik Spoelstra, while Mark Daigneault, Chris Finch and Michael Malone were nominated in the West.
Fans in San Antonio, where Derrick White spent the first four-and-a-half seasons of his NBA career, are on board with the campaign to get the Celtics guard to his first All-Star Game this season. As Brian Robb of MassLive details, Sunday’s broadcast of Boston’s blowout victory over the Spurs picked up multiple “White’s an All-Star!’ chants from the San Antonio crowd.
“I’m just thankful and grateful,” White told reporters after the victory. “I just try to go out there and help us win. If I were to make the All-Star game, it’s because of how much we are winning and the type of team we have. I’m just thankful to be a part of this team and the culture we’re building here. Me making it or not making it doesn’t change the fact that I’m just thankful to be here.”
White’s former head coach Gregg Popovich said on Sunday that he “couldn’t be more proud of a player” than he is of White, who was a starter in the Spurs’ backcourt before being shipped to Boston at the 2022 trade deadline.
“When he first came, I don’t think he believed he belonged in the NBA,” Popovich said. “To watch him develop through the years, started here with the G League. Playing with us and then starting for us and then taking more steps in Boston has just been a thrill to watch.
“He’s one of the greatest guys ever. His confidence has just exploded. It’s been a process. He’s been in the league now, six, seven years. I’m not sure anymore. But he’s a great story. And starting out at the bottom and believing in himself and doing the work necessary to get where he is now. Just thrilled for him.”
Here’s more on the Celtics:
- Appearing on the latest episode of Podcast P with Paul George, former Celtics forward Gordon Hayward revisited the 2018/19 team that lost to Milwaukee in the second round of the playoffs and posited that “too many agendas” in the locker room led to that club’s downfall (hat tip to Andrew Peters of Bleacher Report). “In my eyes it was just, we all had too many agendas, and the agenda to win the whole thing was not the main one,” Hayward said. “Not to blame anyone either, because I think it was all human nature.” That Celtics team featured Hayward in his first healthy season in Boston and Kyrie Irving in his final year with the organization.
- Addressing Hayward’s comments, Jayson Tatum clarified that there were no locker room issues on that Celtics club, but agreed with his former teammate that the on-court chemistry was a problem, referring to it as a learning experience. “What Gordon said was kind of right,” Tatum said, per Adam Himmelsbach of The Boston Globe. “Guys would come back from injury, guys were trying to prove themselves, like myself. I was trying to be better than I was last year, and it was just kind of a tough year. … Everybody wanted to do more, and we didn’t quite understand how we all could coexist with each other.”
- Celtics guard Jrue Holiday missed Sunday’s game due to a sprained right elbow, but head coach Joe Mazzulla said he had no long-term concerns about that injury, tweets Jay King of The Athletic. Holiday was back in action on Tuesday vs. Oklahoma City.
- Prior to the Thunder‘s win over Boston on Tuesday, OKC head coach Mark Daigneault raved about the impact that Celtics big man Al Horford had during Daigneault’s first year as a head coach in 2020/21, according to Joe Mussatto of The Oklahoman. “Every first-year NBA head coach should be as lucky as I was to have Al Horford on their team. Stud professional and person,” Daigneault said. “And for a guy that has as much experience as he has, not cynical, very solution-oriented, not a know-it-all — he knows it all, but he always channels that toward solutions and toward the team.”