This Boston Celtics team is a reminder that the NBA season is waves.
Josh Minott opened the year as a consistent presence in the starting lineup, starting nine consecutive games, yet he hasn’t logged meaningful
rotational minutes since December 12.
Conversely, Luka Garza endured a 15-day stretch without seeing the floor, only to emerge as a key contributor in the rotation over the past week.
The latest to have their role shift in their favor though is Forward Jordan Walsh.
Walsh opened the season with limited opportunities, logging just five minutes and 18 seconds across the first six games. Following a conversation between Jaylen Brown and head coach Joe Mazzulla, Walsh’s role expanded significantly, as he went on to start 16 consecutive games.
His momentum was briefly slowed after he logged just 12 minutes in Toronto and then missed the following game due to an illness. Although he returned the game after, his role and impact did not immediately resemble what it had been before. Over the next four games, he failed to eclipse the 20-minute mark and ultimately lost his starting spot against the Clippers.
But instead of sulking, Walsh turned in his best performance of some time with a 13-point 13-rebound double-double. Mazzulla saw the effort during the game and rewarded Walsh with 29 minutes.
“To me, Joe was challenging me to come in and try to be the guy that I was,” Walsh said after the game.
Walsh said his lack of play time lately is “definitely fuel” but reiterated that impacting winning is the main priority. “Starting [or] bench it don’t matter. If I have a chance to come in and make an impact, that’s all that really matters,” he explained.
His play certainly resembled that vs the Clippers.
Walsh got back to the defender we had come to know him to be in this game playing solid defense on Kawhi Leonard and James Harden. He showed that relentless energy and gave multiple efforts which are required on this defense predicated on flying to the ball.
You see some of that here as he begins cutting off the passing lane to Leonard. Ball ends up finding Leonard and he does a nice job fighting over the screen showing high hands. With Leonard at halfcourt, he slides all the way down to the free throw line to help on the drive. He slips but is still able to recover and keep a body on Leonard and force a pass. He ends the possession with a rebound.
Along with the defense, Walsh had an absurd stretch of shooting the ball. At one point he hit 19 of 21 shots. I’m certainly not expecting him to get that hot again, but his shooting splits have dropped to 45/33/85 over his last six games which aren’t necessarily abysmal.
In this game he showed great touch shooting 3-4 from behind the arc. Queta’s roll after his wide pin down for Anfernee Simons made Leonard step to him, leaving Walsh open.
Here Walsh shows that role player IQ he spent a ton of time in the offseason working on. He sets the Exit screen (screen for someone to cut to the corner) for Sam Hauser and while that’s happening, Queta rolls. These two things occurring together make Nic Batum have to choose between getting to the corner or stopping the roll.
The layup seems like the more immediate danger, so Batum steps up to Queta. This now leaves a 2-on-1 in the corner with Walsh and Hauser, but wea are able to take advantage of this because Walsh smartly cuts making Leonard choose which guy to cover. He goes with Walsh, leaving Hauser open.
Walsh then shows great hustle getting the offensive rebound but does step out of bounds. Mistakes are acceptable when you play this hard.
Here Walsh does a great job recognizing that his teammate has a height disadvantage. He uses that length to get the block from behind on Collins leading to a Hauser three.
He shows more of that IQ, making another timely cut. With Brown being as hot as he was, it proved imperative that guys played off of him correctly, and Walsh did all night.
Good recognition of time and score plus gameplan here by him. He gets switched off of Harden at the end of the quarter, and that’s of course not what the Celtics want. He immediately goes to trap, and it gets the ball out of Harden’s hands. Payton Pritchard does a great job forcing Brook Lopez to pump fake, which gives Walsh the time to come over and get a good contest.
Mazzulla approves.
The Celtics have struggled to close out possessions throughout the season, but if Walsh can consistently provide this level of aggressive rebounding, brighter days may be ahead.
Walsh sits in the corner here with his hands shot ready, but Brown does bad all by himself. On the other end though, Walsh uses those freakishly long arms again to force a Leonard airball. Brown comes down the court looking for another score, but the Clippers trap and Walsh again prevails playing off Brown.
It was so good to see Walsh play at a high level again and respond to the call. He has the ability to impact winning in so many ways and maintaining that consistency will keep him on the floor.
