Celts Continue To Roll In Their Second Game In Utah
I’ll tell ya what, if there is one thing the Celtics continue to do, it’s win meaningless basketball games year after year. Last year was domination, through two games this year, they show no signs of slowing down. Everybody knows that there is a direct correlation to winning summer league games and ultimately playoff success, so rightfully so we should all be giddy with excitement. I won’t even mention how impressive this performance was with Utah having a home game. Playoff atmosphere really. Remember that mental tough ness as we move forward for sure.
After their first strong performance, to hear that Jaylen Brown and RJ Hunter were both out was a tad disappointing. Young guys need reps to build off momentum, and I really wanted to see Brown absolutely dunk on someone after hearing his quotes after Monday’s game. What this meant, was that someone was going to have to step up. A summer league veteran who has gone through the summer gauntlet before was going to have to put the team on his back. Fortunately for us, we have James Young. This was a big bounce back performance for the #FREEJAMESYOUNG movement, and the haters will be quick to throw out the “ohh sweet he played well in the summer league! James Young sucks!”. Well, you can’t have it both ways. You can’t dog on him for not playing, or underperforming, but then when he does come out and plays great say it doesn’t matter because of when it happened. The kid is 20 years old and THIS was the aggressiveness I’ve craved from him throughout his entire Celtics career. His line was everything you want from him: 4-9 (4-5 from deep) 17 points 5 rebounds 2 steals. That may not look like anything, but here’s where the progress rears its head. It wasn’t as if these were all wide open threes. He was making contested jumpers with guys flying at him. It was only fitting that he hit the dagger three to seal the game. God I love me some James Young. Always will.
It was great to see him take his great start and build off it, rather than go and disappear like what happened in their first game. Any progress is good progress when it comes to Young, and I’ll take this kind of performance any day of the week.
As surprising as a performance as Young was, what wasn’t surprising was how more better Terry Rozier looks. Things appear to be slowing down for him, and it’s making a real difference. He fucking shammgod’d a guy for christ sake! He continued to show his aggressive nature (9 FTA), and the 16/6/4 was nice, but you want to know what I really loved? The 1 turnover. Summer league play is turnover central, but Rozier is doing a great job of staying in control and not forcing the ball. Where his role ends up being next year is basically up in the air, as I’m not sure you can play both him and Smart at the same time. You figure Brown is going to get a majority of Turners minutes, but maybe Brad decides to take Smart off the ball on the second unit and have Terry run the point. Defensively I can get behind this idea real quick.
So Young was great, Rozier was great, but who was the best of them all? MOTHER FUCKING YABU BABY!! The best way to realize that absolutely NONE of us are good talent evaluators is we ALL thought after this first summer league game ” yeesh, this dude isn’t close to ready” well..
13 points 8 rebounds (4 OREB) 1 steal 2 blocks and one dunk that pretty much convinced me Danny Ainge is a goddamn genius. Between him, Young, and Bentil, Maine may never lose a game again. On Monday they didn’t really run anything for him, or really utilize him at all. Last night we saw him make some big boy plays around the basket, even score over taller players, which was definitely an area of concern with him
A couple other things:
– Brad clearly told Hayward the roster plan for when he’s available in the summer of 2017. Dunno how it works adding ANOTHER small forward to the roster, but I am behind this move 100%
– Looks like Sully is about to get his. And it’s not coming from us. There’s no way he was accepting his QO, and with the money being thrown around, just too rich for my blood. Best of luck wherever it is Sully.
– Current Summer League Crush Standings