The Celtics finished 5th in offensive rebounding rate last year at 31.8%, according to Cleaning the Glass. That number plummeted to 30.4% and 11th in the league in the playoffs, which played a part in why the Celtics lost to the 76ers in Round 1.
In their first preseason game on Thursday night, a 124-113 win over the Cleveland Cavaliers, the Cs once again dominated the offensive glass. They had 21 offensive rebounds, grabbing 46.9% of their own misses in the game. It was another showing that the offensive glass is going
to be a big advantage for Boston yet again this season.
They didn’t even have Mitchell Robinson in this game, who is the best offensive rebounder in the league last season. Robinson rebounded 21.2% of Knicks misses when he was on the court.
On Thursday, the charge was led by Luka Garza along with rookies Chris Cenac Jr. and Dillon Mitchell, who each had four offensive rebounds.
A lot of the Celtics offensive rebounds come from crashing on the wings. Guys like Jordan Walsh, Baylor Scheierman and Hugo Gonzalez made a habit of it last year. I expect that to be a big part of the Celtics offensive rebounding approach this season as well.
The Celtics had a few rebounds like this in this game.
— #LetsGoCeltics (@gobosceltics) October 9, 2026— #LetsGoCeltics (@gobosceltics) October 9, 2026
— #LetsGoCeltics (@gobosceltics) October 9, 2026— #LetsGoCeltics (@gobosceltics) October 9, 2026
Luka Garza was also an animal on the offensive glass early in the game. He had three of his four offensive rebounds in the first five minutes of the game. Garza is a smart player who does get himself into good positioning on some of these opportunities but on others, like the play shown below, it is just pure effort from Garza to get the rebound.
— #LetsGoCeltics (@gobosceltics) October 9, 2026— #LetsGoCeltics (@gobosceltics) October 9, 2026
It is really fun to see Garza make plays like this. He became a very good offensive rebounder in his first year as a Celtic and I am excited to see how he adds to it in Year Two in green. His effort always stands out, as seen by how much he sweats.
Nobody: Luka Garza at any point in a basketball game: https://t.co/CENziId6RQ
— Trey (@TA1297) October 9, 2026
The Celtics should be really good this year and the offensive glass is going to be a reason as why.
They’ll need it to carry over to the postseason this year if they want to make a deep playoff run and I think adding Robinson boosts the chances of that happening. The way they struggled creating second chance opportunities during the first round loss was slightly alarming. On Thursday though, we saw how much of a factor the offensive glass is going to be.
