Neemias Queta

Celtics’ Porzingis To Miss Game 5 With Strained Calf

April 30th, 2024 at 4:30pm CST by Luke Adams

4:30pm: Porzingis is expected to miss multiple games, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski tweets.

4:03pm: Porzingis has been ruled out for Game 5 due to what the Celtics are calling a right soleus strain (Twitter link via Brian Robb of MassLive.com).

The soleus is the same calf muscle that has sidelined Giannis Antetokounmpo since the final week of the regular season, though it’s unclear whether Porzingis’ strain is as severe as Antetokounmpo’s.

7:40am: The Celtics took full control of their first-round series vs. Miami on Monday by picking up their second consecutive road victory and extending their series lead to 3-1. However, as Chris Herring of ESPN writes, the Game 4 win might have come at a cost, as big man Kristaps Porzingis exited in the second quarter due to a right calf injury and didn’t return.

The Celtics’ starting center is expected to undergo an MRI on Tuesday to assess the severity of the ailment, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, who hears from sources that early indications are that Porzingis didn’t suffer an Achilles injury.

Porzingis initially appeared to start limping with about 3:15 left in the second quarter when he stepped on Tyler Herro‘s ankle (video link). However, he turned his left ankle on that play, and the injury was said to affect his right calf, so it may have been unrelated. Less than a minute later, as he caught a pass from Jaylen Brown, Porzingis began limping again and gestured toward the bench that he needed to be subbed out of the game (Twitter video link).

Porzingis has been relatively healthy for the past two seasons, appearing in 57 regular season games in 2023/24 and 65 a year ago. But he has missed significant time due to health problems in the past, having made just 151 total appearances in the four seasons prior to 2022/23. As such, any injury is a concern, though there have been some signals that this isn’t a significant one.

Abby Chin of NBC Sports Boston reported at the start of the second half that Celtics assistant Charles Lee was “cautiously optimistic” that Porzingis would be OK (story via Brian Robb of MassLive). And Porzingis himself tweeted after the win that he “will be good.”

If Porzingis is unable to play in Game 5 on Wednesday, it would mean an increased role for Al Horford, with reserve bigs Luke Kornet, Xavier Tillman, and Neemias Queta moving up on the depth chart. As Jared Weiss of The Athletic notes, Boston gave up a pair of second-round picks at February’s trade deadline for Tillman precisely so the team didn’t find itself shorthanded in the frontcourt in a situation like this.

“Luke, Xavier, Neemie, have to kind of be ready to step up and answer the call,” Horford said after the game, per Weiss. “They’ve been doing a good job of that all year. Obviously, it’s the playoffs now, it’s different, but I have confidence in those guys if they need to come in and bring energy and impact the game.”

The Celtics had another injury scare in the fourth quarter of Game 4, as Jayson Tatum turned an ankle when he came down on Bam Adebayo‘s foot while attempting a jump shot after a whistle (Twitter video link). However, Tatum was able to walk it off and finish the game — he’ll presumably be good to go for Game 5.

Celtics Notes: Heat Rivalry, Brown, Porzingis, Kornet, Hauser

April 20th, 2024 at 8:52pm CST by Arthur Hill

The Celtics got a very familiar playoff opponent when the Heat defeated Chicago Friday night, writes Khari Thompson of The Boston Globe. The teams have faced each other in three of the past four Eastern Conference finals, with Miami winning last year and in 2020 and Boston prevailing in 2022. With all the history between the two organizations, Jaylen Brown believed another meeting was inevitable.

“I knew it was going to be Miami. I knew it from a few weeks back,” Brown said. “Just coming from last year to this year, it just makes sense, so we’re looking forward to it. It should be a great challenge. Miami is a tough team, well coached, they play hard, and they’re physical. All the things that we need to emphasize. So it should be fun.”

Kristaps Porzingis, who was acquired in a trade last summer, is looking forward to his first experience with the Celtics-Heat rivalry, Thompson adds. Boston won all three regular season matchups, but Porzingis understands that Miami is dangerous because of how its players approach the play0ffs.

“We have to expect them to be ultra-aggressive,” he said. “Ultra-handsy and trying to do all the little dirty things they can. Not dirty things, but to mess up the game a little bit to get some advantages. And, yeah, we have to be ready for that. It’s going to be a war.”

There’s more from Boston:

Luke Kornet will miss Sunday’s opener with a strained right calf, according to Souichi Terada of MassLive. The backup big man has been part of the rotation, but Terada notes that the Celtics have other options due to a midseason trade for Xavier Tillman and the recent conversion of Neemias Queta‘s two-way contract. No explanation was provided for when or how Kornet was injured.
With Sam Hauser developing into a dangerous three-point weapon off the Celtics’ bench, Adam Himmelsbach of The Boston Globe looks back at the night the sharpshooter decided to join the organization. Moments after the 2021 draft ended, Hauser got two-way contract offers from the Celtics and Timberwolves, along with an opportunity to join the Heat’s Summer League team and compete for a two-way deal. All three teams wanted an answer right away so they could pursue other players if they didn’t land Hauser. “When I got off the phone, my dad was like, ‘Well, why don’t you just sleep on it?’” Hauser said. “And I told him, ‘We’ve got 10 minutes.’ So we all just kind of sat down and talked about the options and came to the conclusion that Boston was probably the best spot for me.”
Jared Weiss and Jay King of The Athletic talked to scouts and coaches about the best strategies for countering the Celtics’ defense.

Atlantic Notes: Dowtin, Queta, Melton, Poeltl, Barnes, Rajakovic

April 9th, 2024 at 11:46am CST by Luke Adams

The new deals signed by Jeff Dowtin with the Sixers and Neemias Queta with the Celtics are two-way contracts with second-year team options for 2024/25, according to Michael Scotto of HoopsHype (Twitter links).

Both Dowtin and Queta were on two-way deals before promoted to their respective teams’ 15-man rosters, and both players received minimum-salary contracts.

Here are more notes from around the Atlantic:

Sixers guard De’Anthony Melton, who has been sidelined since February 27 due to back issues and has only played five games since the calendar turned to 2024, has been upgraded to questionable for Tuesday’s game vs. Detroit, tweets Gina Mizell of The Philadelphia Inquirer. While Melton’s comeback efforts have flown somewhat under the radar, overshadowed by Joel Embiid‘s recent return, it would be a major boost for the 76ers if they can get the versatile guard back in action before the postseason tips off.
Asked on Sunday about Jakob Poeltl‘s and Scottie Barnes‘ recoveries from hand surgeries, Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic told reporters that although neither player has formally been ruled out for the season, he’s not counting on either one returning this week (Twitter links via Josh Lewenberg of TSN.ca and Michael Grange of Sportsnet). Both Poeltl and Barnes continue to go through the ramp-up process — even if they’re not back in action in the coming days, the goal is to get them in the best possible shape heading into the offseason.
In a pair of stories for The Athletic, Eric Koreen considers what we can learn from Rajakovic’s first year as the Raptors‘ head coach and hands out his end-of-season awards, including naming Poeltl the most underappreciated Raptor of 2023/24.

Celtics Promote Neemias Queta To Multiyear Standard Contract

April 8th, 2024 at 8:42pm CST by Rory Maher

8:42pm: While the terms of the deal were not disclosed, a source tells Brian Robb of MassLive that Queta received a multiyear contract. Since the Celtics don’t have their mid-level exception available, the deal can’t cover more than two seasons.

7:16pm: The Celtics have promoted center Neemias Queta from a two-way deal to a standard contract, the team announced in a press release.

Converting Queta makes him eligible for the postseason, and the move also completes Boston’s 15-man standard roster.

The NBA’s first player from Portugal, the Lisbon native was the 39th overall pick of the 2021 draft after playing three years of college ball at Utah State. He spent his first two seasons on two-way deals with Sacramento, but he was released in September and signed with the Celtics a few days later.

Queta, 24, has been a standout at the G League level over the past three seasons, including helping lead the Maine Celtics to their first ever appearance in the NBAGL Finals. Maine will face the Oklahoma City Blue, the Thunder’s affiliate, in a best-of-three series that begins on Tuesday.

In 26 games with Boston in 2023/24, Queta has averaged 4.6 points and 4.1 rebounds while shooting 61.4% from the field in 11.4 minutes per contest.

Celtics Notes: Tatum, Brown, Tillman, Roster Opening

March 16th, 2024 at 5:13pm CST by Arthur Hill

Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla recently started adjusting the rotation patterns and responsibilities for his two star wings, writes Adam Himmelsbach of The Boston Globe. For most of the season, Jayson Tatum had been getting his first rest about six minutes into the game while Jaylen Brown typically played the entire first quarter. Brown then started the second quarter on the bench while Tatum ran the second team. Those roles often reversed in the second half.

Himmelsbach notes that Tatum played the entire second half in last Saturday’s win over Phoenix. In their rematch on Thursday, Brown rested first, while Tatum was on the court for all of the first quarter. Tatum saw just five minutes in the second quarter as Brown played the entire time.

“It’s both of them were having constant, free-flowing conversation throughout the game,” Mazzulla explained. “Credit to them for just kind of trusting the staff on the decision that was made at the time, but there’s a few things that go into it. Obviously, if one of them is playing really well, you want to keep that. [On Thursday] we changed the pattern so we could keep the matchups that we wanted later in the half, later in the quarter. So it’s just a thing that, at first, is in the best interest of them. And then the next best thing is how can we make sure we’re taking advantage of the matchups having the right lineup?”

There’s more from Boston:

Xavier Tillman has seen his playing time steadily increase since being acquired in a trade with Memphis last month, Himmelsbach adds. The Celtics brought Tillman along slowly because he was dealing with left knee soreness at the time of the deal, and they wanted to give him time to learn a new system. He appears to have claimed a consistent rotation role, averaging 22.2 minutes in the last two games. “Just being patient, waiting for him to understand the language, understand the dynamics of it,” Mazzulla said. “Obviously, the staff has done a great job getting on the floor with him, walking him through all of the rules and areas. And just him hearing it in the first few shootarounds and film sessions and getting a clear understanding of what expectations are.”
The Celtics are in no hurry to fill their open roster spot, Brian Robb of MassLive states in a mailbag column. Another salary will add to the team’s tax bill, so there are financial benefits to carrying just 14 players for a while longer. The roster is mostly healthy, and the team would prefer to have flexibility with the open spot in case someone does get hurt. Robb observes that the only intrigue regarding the opening is whether the team will wait until the last day of the regular season or sign someone earlier to give them time to get acclimated. He notes that won’t be an issue if the spot ultimately goes to a two-way player such as Neemias Queta.
Kristaps Porzingis will miss his fifth straight game on Sunday against Washington with a strained right hamstring and Derrick White will sit out with a strained left hand, per Souichi Terada of MassLive. Tatum and Brown are listed as questionable with minor injuries, and Terada notes that Boston is likely to be careful with its players entering a stretch of five games in seven days.

Several Two-Way Players Nearing Active Game Limit

February 20th, 2024 at 10:35am CST by Luke Adams

A player who signs a two-way contract with an NBA team is permitted to be active for up to 50 regular season games. That limit is prorated if the player signed his two-way deal after the regular season got underway — for instance, a player who finalized a two-way contract halfway through the season would be permitted to be active for up to 25 contests at the NBA level.

Several two-way players have been promoted to standard contracts recently, eliminating those games-played limits. GG Jackson (Grizzlies), Keon Ellis (Kings), Lindy Waters III (Thunder), Craig Porter Jr. (Cavaliers), Duop Reath (Trail Blazers), and Jeremiah Robinson-Earl (Pelicans) have all signed new deals since the trade deadline.

However, there are still a number of players on two-way contracts around the league who are at or near their active-game limit for the season. Keith Smith of Spotrac (Twitter link) identifies Celtics big man Neemias Queta, Mavericks guard Brandon Williams, Grizzlies guard Jacob Gilyard, and Hornets teammates Leaky Black and Nathan Mensah as two-way players who have 10 or fewer active games left, while Hawks guard Trent Forrest has already reached his 50-game limit.

In some cases, promotions to the standard roster may be forthcoming. Queta, for instance, has been a semi-regular contributor off the bench for the Celtics, who have an open spot on their 15-man roster, so if Boston wants to make him playoff-eligible and ensure he’s able to be active for the rest of the regular season, a contract conversion would be pretty straightforward.

Other cases could be trickier. While the Hawks would presumably like to have Forrest available for the rest of the season, they have a full 15-man roster, so they’d have to waive someone to make room to promote him.

Atlanta at least has some viable release candidates on its roster — for instance, veterans Patty Mills and Wesley Matthews haven’t played much and aren’t owed guaranteed money beyond this season. But that’s not the case in Memphis, where Gilyard has made a strong case for a promotion from his two-way deal by averaging 4.7 points and 3.5 assists in 37 games (17.7 MPG), with a .425 3PT%.

The Grizzlies have already promoted Jackson and Vince Williams from two-way contracts and may not have any expendable players left on their 15-man roster who could be cut to make room for Gilyard. Luke Kennard ($14.8MM team option for 2024/25) and Lamar Stevens (unrestricted free agent this summer) are the only Grizzlies not owed any guaranteed money after this season, and both are playing rotation roles for the banged-up club.

“We’ll see what happens when the time comes,” Gilyard said of his uncertain situation, according to Damichael Cole of The Memphis Commercial Appeal. “As a basketball player, it’s definitely on your mind. I try not to let it affect me. I think that’s probably the worst part about being a point guard is you start to understand things and start to grasp things like that.”

“It’s kind of a juggling act,” Grizzlies head coach Taylor Jenkins said of working within those active-game limits for his two-way players, including Gilyard and Scotty Pippen Jr. “It’s hard to make those decisions, trying to preserve those dates. (Pippen’s) understood it. I was very upfront with him when he came in, (general manager) Zach (Kleiman) and myself. I think when he came in, we were maybe on the 40-game mark, but he didn’t have 40 games available, so it’s very unfortunate.

“Maybe it’s something that we look into as a league because I think he’s earned the opportunity to play every single night. We just have to balance the games he actually has available to him.”

Besides those players who are approaching their games-played limits, there are a few others on two-way contracts around the league who look like candidates to be promoted to standard rosters before the end of the regular season. Nets forward Jalen Wilson and Warriors guard Lester Quinones are among those who were playing regularly for their respective clubs leading up to the All-Star break.

Promoting a player to a standard contract would open up a two-way slot for his team, allowing that club to reset its active-game counter for that slot — at least to some extent. Due to the prorated nature of those game limits, a player who signs a two-way contract today could only be active for up to 16 games the rest of the way, but that’s 16 more games than, say, Forrest is eligible to play for the Hawks as long as he remains on his current two-way deal.

Teams have until March 4 to sign players to two-way contracts, so I expect to see a good deal of roster activity related to two-way slots within the next couple weeks.

Celtics Notes: Trades, Stevens, Springer, Tillman, Roster

February 9th, 2024 at 11:36pm CST by Rory Maher

The Celtics made a somewhat surprising trade with a division rival on Thursday, landing third-year guard Jaden Springer from Philadelphia in exchange for a 2024 second-round pick. Speaking to the media on Friday, president of basketball operations Brad Stevens said the former first-round pick was a player they’d been eyeing for a few years, writes Brian Robb of MassLive.com.

“We’ve tracked his development pretty closely over the years,” Stevens said. “We liked him in the draft a few years ago. He was the youngest player in that draft. He’s still a puppy. He’s still 21 years old. He was unbelievable in the G League playoffs last year. He’s done a lot of good things against us when he’s been up in Maine. We’ve seen him live several times up there. He’s a guy we’ve been tracking for a while.”

Adam Himmelsbach of The Boston Globe hears from a source (Twitter link) that Springer was “strongly endorsed” by a pair of former 76ers assistant coaches who are now with the Celtics — Sam Cassell and Tyler Lashbrook.

“He is an athlete that can play athletically in the playoffs, right?” Stevens said of Springer, per Jay King of The Athletic. “But he also has a lot of growing to get better and he’s committed to that. He’s got a long runway ahead. So we’ll see how this year shakes itself out for him. See how it all fits with the team. But he’s a guy that we believe in.”

Here’s more on the Celtics:

According to King, Stevens indicated that part of the reason Boston was interested in Springer and Xavier Tillman, the team’s other trade acquisition (from Memphis), is that they’re young players who could develop with the Celtics, who have a chance to retain them long-term. Tillman will be an unrestricted free agent this summer, but Boston has his Bird rights, so it will be able to potentially re-sign him without worrying about salary cap limitations. Springer, meanwhile, already had his fourth-year team option exercised, and will be eligible for restricted free agency in 2025 if he doesn’t sign a rookie scale extension in the offseason. The Celtics project to be over the second tax apron next season, when they’ll be more limited in how they can construct their roster due to the new CBA.
Stevens said the front office didn’t want to disrupt the team’s chemistry, which is why the Celtics made a pair of relatively minor moves. As with Springer, Tillman was a player they’d liked for quite a while, particularly due to his defensive versatility and basketball IQ. “He competes, he passes, thinks the game well,” Stevens said, per King. “All the stuff that we’ve been fortunate with the guys we have around our best players, that they brought to the table. He knows how to play. So we’re excited to have him.” However, Tillman indicated that he’s still dealing with a left knee injury and has no timetable for his Celtics debut.
While Stevens praised two-way center Neemias Queta, who has been viewed as a candidate to be promoted to a standard deal, he said the Celtics aren’t in a rush to fill the opening on their 15-man roster, tweets Chris Forsberg of NBC Sports Boston. “I don’t know if making that final decision and saying, ‘OK, these are our 15 guys right now with two months left in the season,’ makes a lot of sense. I think we need to utilize this time to evaluate,” Stevens said.
The Celtics send the Trail Blazers $3MM in cash as part of their Dalano Banton trade, reports Eric Pincus of Bleacher Report (Twitter link).

Celtics Notes: Tillman Trade, Stevens, Queta

February 7th, 2024 at 10:06pm CST by Arthur Hill

Xavier Tillman was exactly the type of player the Celtics had in mind when they accumulated second-round picks during last year’s draft in anticipation of eventually trading for a big man, writes Jared Weiss of The Athletic. Boston cashed in two of those picks today, fortifying its front line by acquiring Tillman from Memphis.

Tillman provides the Celtics with a strong defensive presence off the bench for potential playoff matchups with the East’s best centers and power forwards. Weiss notes that he possesses the best qualities of the two backup centers the team has been using, combining Neemias Queta‘s physicality and Luke Kornet‘s basketball IQ. Weiss also points out that Tillman often initiated the Grizzlies’ offense from the elbow, the same way Boston does with Kornet. However, his poor shooting this season — 40.8% from the field and 22.6% from three-point range — may present a concern.

After tonight’s win over Atlanta, Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla talked to reporters about what he expects Tillman to bring to the team, tweets Souichi Terada of MassLive.

“Skilled. Toughness. Well-coached,” Mazzulla said. “Obviously we paid a lot of attention to him … I think his extra defensive versatility.”

There’s more from Boston:

Acquiring Tillman’s Bird rights is a significant move for a team that projects to be above the second tax apron, states Brian Robb of MassLive. Tillman has a $1.9MM expiring contract, but Boston won’t have to worry about cap limitations when negotiating his next contract. Beginning this offseason, second-apron teams can’t aggregate salaries, send cash or use traded player exceptions in any deal in addition to not having access to the mid-level exception, so today’s move is a way of adding another long-term piece to the roster before the team’s options become limited this summer.
The Celtics were focused on flexibility when they opted to send Lamar Stevens to Memphis in the deal rather than use one of their trade exceptions and fill their open roster spot, a league source confirms to Adam Himmelsbach of The Boston Globe. Stevens earned a place on the roster after signing an Exhibit 10 deal with Boston last summer, but he wasn’t able to crack the rotation and saw limited playing time in 19 games. Mazzulla complimented Stevens for his professionalism and said he and Stevens are excited about the greater opportunity for playing time with the Grizzlies, Weiss tweets.
The open roster spot preserves the chance to convert Queta’s two-way deal to a standard contract. Himmelsbach adds. The third-year center can appear in 28 more games as a two-way player, but he won’t be eligible for the postseason unless he’s on the 15-man roster.

Celtics Notes: Udoka, Mazzulla, Tatum, Kornet

January 13th, 2024 at 10:59pm CST by Arthur Hill

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.

Celtics Notes: Trade Exception, Roster, Queta, Brissett

January 7th, 2024 at 8:47am CST by Luke Adams

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.”

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