LIVE Garden Report: What We LEARNED at First Celtics Training Camp Practices

LIVE Garden Report: What We LEARNED at First Celtics Training Camp Practices

Hard hat’s all about showing up to play hard, doing what it takes to win. If you want to cement legacy, win another. He’s your third center. You don’t want to pump him up too much, but it’s hard not to. This is maybe the most I’ve ever agreed with you. Hey, B Manning here. Welcome to a Thursday edition of the Garden Report. got an off day from practice and Jay King’s here and you got a phone call practice. Yes, right on time. Welcome in Jay here to the Garden Report and a lot happened. I feel like media day was pretty long. We had two practices. Got to talk to quite a few Celtics here and there’s obviously a lot of players gone, a lot of new faces to try to figure out here, which is different. And it’s been a couple years where we’ve pretty much known everybody from the start and what this team’s going to do. Now we’re talking about new systems and styles and trying to figure out what this thing’s going to look like here. And I find that pretty exciting. Yeah. Like last year especially was kind of weird to write about because they changed nothing. They brought back all the same guys. I mean Pton Pritchard emerged as a six-man of the year. Luke Cornett emerged as one of the best backup big men in the NBA. But really like they were playing the same lineups, they were playing the same guys. There was not much that changed. Now that lot’s going to change. Sounds like their playing style is going to change. Their rotation is certainly going to change in quite a bit. And young guys are going to have to pop up and and be useful. And I’m looking forward to it. I I think I think after, you know, the last couple years, you knew what to expect. Now there’s a lot of unknown. And and that’s pretty exciting. Yeah. And that’s probably the biggest news we’ve gotten out of camp is universal agreement that they’re going to play faster. And sounds like faster. Yeah. And Pritchard said they need to. He was talking about that later late in last season. Uh I know Horford was big on that too when he was here. But they just couldn’t get it done. They seemed to get slower as the year went on. And then in one of those first Brad pressures over the off season, he was like, “Yeah, the things grinded to the hall to a halt.” in the Knicks series there and you know I I think Joe’s probably pushed back against it a little bit at least what we’re you know defining his pace here because they were 29th right I think you know you and some others wrote about this they were down to 30th over the last couple months and it looked like it walking the ball up taking a long time to get into their possessions and you know I don’t disagree with Joe that there’s many different ways you can look at pace but regardless of how you do it definitely slowed late last season So, do they have to be the Bulls and just go nuts up and down the floor? You know, some of those old Suns teams, I don’t know. But I think for Pritchard’s sake, Brown, who loves to play fast, and White’s pretty good in transition, too. I think it makes a lot of sense to to push the pace with this team. And then you’re not in the half court as much. You’re not trying to, you know, get out of double teams and whatever else teams are going to throw at them while Tatum’s out. I think it’s pretty natural for them to want to do that. Are they actually going to be able to accomplish it? I think is another question. Yeah, I I think it just makes perfect sense with the strengths of their new look roster. You look around, their best players are perimeter players. You know, they have they have a question mark at center. They have a question mark at power forward. Is Sam Hower going to start there? Because I think he’s the best option there. I think he’s the best player you can use there. And if you start him there or start Jailing at power forward with Hower at three, however you want to look at it, you’re going to be really small. And one way to counteract being really small is to play fast, not just fast on offense, but fast on defense. And that means picking up pressuring more, creating more turnovers. They haven’t forced turnovers at all during the Joe Missoula era. I think that was very much partly due to the personnel on the team. But I think with Chris Porzingis gone, with Al Horford gone, you’ve lost two guys that sort of forced you into little more conservative approach defensively. Jason Tatum, I would say like he’s as solid as it gets defensively. He’s he’s not going to be like the most disruptive guy. and and now you know is if Pton Pritchard starts next to Derek White, you’re going to be really small. You got to you got to be getting after guys. You got to be getting up in transition. You don’t have those automatic advantages, those two for ones that that Jason Tatum used to create for everybody else. Jaylen Brown has been one of the best transition scorers in the league over the past several years, even though the Celtics have played much slower and he’s been urging them to play faster for years now. It seems like a few times a year he he pulls that out during a press conference and says, you know, I’ve I’ve I’ve been asking guys to play faster. I’ve wanted to play faster. He said at one point we get in trouble when we walk the ball up the court. And it’s true. And they they don’t want to do that anymore. And I think that’s just one way to to utilize the new roster. And also it I mean maybe there is but I don’t see much separation between the fifth or sixth guy on this roster and the 11th or 12th. And if there’s not much separation then maybe you just play a lot of guys and have them play hard as hell while they’re out there and hope that you know playing hard and and getting up and down the court can can overcome some of the flaws of the roster. Yeah. and maybe uh maybe cycle in four or five guys at a time like like hockey the hockey subs that that Jordan Walsh was talking about, but Joe Mazula sharply denied that one. So, speaking of starters, we’ll get to the defense in in a few here. I, you know, grab that social media post they did of the scrimmages out there and try to break down, you know, who’s who’s on either side, you know, who’s playing with who. And by, you know, they’re flashing all around. and it’s like 2 minutes, so it’s tough to tell, but by the best view I could get, it looked like most of the starting unit that was out there was typically White, Pritchard, Hower, Brown, and Kada. Um, and that’s the group that’s been here. Uh, they played a decent amount of minutes together last season. And before Chris Buché signed, I I almost felt like this was the obvious starting five. Like I I didn’t have much doubt that this was going to be it. You know, you can you can have some questions with this group, particularly in the front court, but it’s just the experienced guys, guys who have mostly played together and guys who have earned their spots. When you think of White Pritchard, I feel like, and and Brown and Chris Bush Bush has he’s almost 33 years old. He plays power forward, but he started 23 games in his entire career. This has been a career backup. And and we’ve seen 17 minutes a game, more or less. You’ve seen the last few years when somebody’s been out, whether it’s Tatum Brown, Derek White, Drew Holiday, a lot of the time they’ve just gone to Hower and thrown him into the starting lineup. And I think it just makes sense to rely on the guys you trust the most. Rely on the guys who are the best players. I think if you look at it in a vacuum, Sam Hower is a better basketball player than Chris Boucher. I I don’t think there’s anyone who would argue that. So, play your best players. create a style that can make those guys work together and and figure it out. I think it’s a good year with with Jason Tatum out and with all these new faces to kind of experiment, see what you have with with different different things. And I think Joe Mazul is going to be pretty creative here this coming season. Yeah. And then when you get into the second units here, Simons was out there. Um, may not you saw a little bit of Walsh, a little bit of Buché playing alongside Garza who was pretty steady in the Grays that were playing out there. Um, I’m trying to think who else was in the mix out there with the with the second unit guys. Um, but that was that was the, you know, most consistent group you saw out there. You saw a little bit of Walsh. Walsh even mixed in with the green side. I couldn’t tell, you know, who he was with out there necessarily, but he was wearing green sometimes. And then you got into uh I’m forgetting someone here. I love the Zaprruder film break of the the minute and a half of of practice footage that they put out there. Hey, you know me, Joe hates talking starters. I love trying to figure out, especially with this roster, who’s going to be out there. And that might change here and there. I know Joe always talks about that with recent teams. You haven’t had, you know, many shifts in who’s starting unless guys were out. This group I feel like could actually maybe go big sometimes, go a little smaller in other cases, or see things aren’t working and make some adjustments there. I think we actually will see a decent amount of starting lineups throughout the year. Yeah, it’s not as easy as just throwing out Derek White, Drew Holiday, Jaylen Brown, Jason Tatum, and Chris Porzingis, and that’s just your starting lineup. It’s it’s not going to be that easy. You’re you’re going to have be choosing from imperfect choices. And I think, you know, Anthony Simons said that we could even see the starting lineup change and that he he said that’s something that’s that’s been said to him. So yeah, I think there’s just uncertainty there that we haven’t seen in a couple years. And I I know there was a little bit of uncertainty when after the Drew Holiday trade about whether he was going to start, Al Horford was going to start. That was decided very early and and never really changed. Um, obviously Porzingis came off the bench some during the the recent playoff run, but for the most part when he was healthy, he started, Al Horford came off the bench and that was that. But now there’s there’s real choices for Joe Misulla to make. Yeah. And I think Kada seems like a pretty strong front runner at center. The other three are, I’d say, decently sure things. The Hower Bouchet trade-off will definitely be interesting, but I I’m with you. I think Hower gets the benefit of the doubt there for being there and then Buché probably has to play some reserve small minutes if Garza doesn’t prove himself immediately. But I think they like Garza so that’s going to be interesting there in the front court. There’ll definitely be some mixing matching. Um I think the fans are most interested in Simon’s Pritchard and surprisingly at least on Twitter I feel like there’s a lot of buzz for Simons grabbing that spot. Don’t put them together in the same same sentence. Bobby, I’m already in hot water on a couple fronts at camp. Um, yeah. So, Simon’s Pritchard’s a debate among the fan base. I don’t know how much of a debate it’s going to be for Joe in particular, who just loves Pritchard. And I think Pritchard, whether he says it or not, always seems to want to push himself to another level. Um, so I think he has some interest in starting or trying to, I’d imagine. and then uh Simons just hasn’t been here and they’ve been trying to acclimate him to this group and you know get him up to speed with the defense. So I think it all points toward Pritchard at least starting there and we heard from him at practice today. I want to uh go to some of that sound but first I want to let everybody know about prize picks which is a big baseball game coming up in just a little bit here. Use the code cls and you’ll get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup over there. Whether you want to add Alex Bregman, go more on his hits, go more on Trevor Story’s home runs, maybe more on Connelly early strikeouts. I like that one tonight. All you got to do is pick more or less on two to six player stat projections, and if you get your picks right, you could cash in. Uh they put their users first, so all withdrawals are fast, safe, and secure. Football coming up tonight as well. 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Um yeah, we we’ve talked about it and uh you know, it’s just a matter of you know, if I want to do it or not. You know what I mean? to just it’s it’s really that simple. Um, you know, like I said, coming into a culture like this, you have to be able to adapt or, you know, it’s not going to you’re not going to be, you know, in the position that you want to be and um whether it’s playing or not playing. So, um, to me, it’s really that simple. And that’s the, you know, the honest conversations we had about it. and um he always says that, you know, you’re not, you know, as bad as people think you are. Um and so um that’s good to hear, but also I got to do the work to um get better in that end and focus in on, you know, exactly what we need to do on the defensive end. And so like I said, I’m pretty excited about being pushed into, you know, a new level of which I can reach. Yeah, he brought it up. you know, obviously in this Joe way, you know, he gonna he gonna, you know, throw jabs at you, you know what I mean? You know what I mean? Just talking smack to you. But, um, you know, I enjoy it. You know what I mean? That’s the that’s the that’s what he’s challenging me with. So, I’m I’m taking on a challenge and if he talk smack to me all day about it, I’m going to take it in and, you know, just try to be better the next day. So, um, that’s all we’ve been doing. Just a simple conversation like that. Yeah, for sure. that that’s one of the first things when I got here. That’s the first things we worked on is just being a playmaker in that way. Um whether it’s um stabbing at the balls, you know, trying to steal the ball, look at passing lanes, um being in the right spot each every time. And so that’s one of the things we drilled for the first I know four weeks I was here, you know, before training camp. So, um those things, you know, something I never really worked on or, you know, been taught. And so I was happy that you know that was the focus and you know we could see you know the impact on those four weeks of you know just working on that stuff. That that was a lot of interesting stuff there. Um what stuck out to you most hearing from Simons for the first time? Well, it’s always funny hearing somebody who hasn’t been a good defender say that it’s all about wanting to. Like why haven’t you why haven’t you wanted to yet? I just wasn’t trying. That one stood out first. Yeah. Yeah. One one that one that wasn’t uh included that that stood out to me was that he thinks this situation with Joe Missoula pushing him will will help him, will be good for his career. He said a lot of things over the last few days about wanting to contribute to winning. When asked about whether he wanted to start, he said he doesn’t care. He just wants to contribute to winning. And I think he knows like Portland Portland once valued him at a really high level and and thought that he was the future of that back court after Damen Lillard and CJ McCollum. Now he’s 26. He just got traded. They basically chose Scoot Henderson over him. They did choose Drew Holiday, who’s a 35year-old who already showed signs of decline and has $104 million left on his contract over him. And the Celtics after getting him, like they looked into the trade market to see if they could shed salary with using his contract. And so he has to know that what he’s done to date isn’t good enough for for teams around the league to to see him as a bonafide starting point guard or a bonafide contributor on a great team. And this this is a prove it year for him. He has to show that he can defend at a higher level than he has in the past. He has to show that he can play alongside great players. And I I like the the attitude that he’s shown toward it so far. And I think Joe’s a good coach to help drag that out of somebody. But at the end of the day, he has been statistically ba based on some stats that that I trust and value like EPM estimated plus minus one of the very worst defenders in the league since since stepping onto an NBA court. And that has to change. He doesn’t have to be the greatest defender ever. Doesn’t have to be Drew Holiday, but you can’t be a huge huge minus every time you step on the court either. Quite frankly, he’s not that good. He’s a great great great great offensive player, but he’s not good enough where he can get away with that. So, it’s a big year for him. Yeah, for sure. And I I also find interesting Joe saying, “You’re not as bad as people think you are.” And him going to him and bringing this up himself, this conversation, cuz you know, Joe’s earned a lot of trust from different guys who have been here and, you know, he was even assistant coaches for him before Eay went out and, you know, even that last Brad year. So, he’s known guys pretty well who he’s been able to challenge for the most part or guys lower on the roster who aren’t necessarily stars. I This is him going right at a guy who had been a star in the past and challenging him and pushing him and and jabbing at him here. And this is certainly a guy who maybe isn’t playing for his NBA life, but is definitely trying to get his next contract here and figure out what’s next for him. So yeah, that was an interesting risk I think he took taking that approach with him and the fact that Simons seemed to receive it pretty well. We’ll see what actually happens when we get into games and, you know, distributing minutes and rolls and all that. It’s a that’s a win for Joe, I feel like. And again, who knew if Simons was even going to be here? Um, I was in favor of keeping him around. Like I don’t think a guy like that a salary dump made much sense. Um, and there definitely wasn’t much value for him out there clearly. So, you know, when people would ask who who needs this guy around the league, there’s a lot of point guards. There’s a lot of scorers around the league. There’s not a lot of teams that need him. I was like, the Celtics kind of do. Like, Tatum’s out. You know, they don’t have a ton in their back court. They need this guy. And I don’t know if he’s a long-term piece here or not, but they should take every opportunity they can to try to figure that out. Now, in terms of the defense he’s going to be playing here, he talked about it there. You know, they’re swiping, they’re doing different drills like that. Josh Min talked about some of the stuff they’re doing that he’s never done before. Um, it is kind of funny to hear that they’ve never done this stuff, but the Celtics haven’t, as you said, prioritized forcing turnovers, and, you know, even Joe hasn’t denied that that’s going to be something they’re trying to do this year. He’s talked about that in the past, and they haven’t actually done it. They’ve been bottom five the last three years here in forcing turnovers. Um, are they actually going to be able to get it done now with the personnel that they have in this system that they’re talking about? Well, you better, right? Because you don’t have some of the best rim protection in the league anymore. You don’t have Chris Porzingis, Al Horford, and Luke Cornett to to save you. You don’t have Jason Tatum, one of the best defensive rebounders at his position to help you out. Like quite frankly, this this roster has some serious defensive limitations. And I think one way to to overcome those is to to force more turnovers, be more aggressive, u send more traps, and like I said, they might play really small. And I think it’s really important for them that that Simons is at least a nonzero defensively. I’m not as long as he like if he can play next to Derek White and Payton Pritchard and you can get away with playing those three guys, you are going to be super difficult to guard on offense. There are very few teams equipped to guard those three, Jaylen Brown and but you have to have a way to defend and I think forcing turnovers I think running around being everywhere like you have to do that. This roster has no choice. You don’t have the guys to cover up for you. You don’t have the size that you used to have. You are smaller. You’re faster. You’re more athletic. And and I just think they’re going to need to play a lot differently defensively than they have in the past three years. Yeah. And if they want to run, you know, they got to rack up some stat stops somehow. And that’s the thing. They’ve been a great defense going back to the Brad years. I think I was looking back at all the defensive ratings. It was only like two years um since the beginning of Brad’s tenure that they haven’t been in like the top, you know, six to 13 or so in defensive rating. So, it’ll be interesting to see them try to figure it out on that end because they don’t have amazing talent on that end. And everybody’s playing up a little bit in terms of their responsibilities. Everyone’s probably going to have to guard up in size. Um I don’t know how much you’re going to want to switch this year. How much is Kada playing straight up at center? like I’m a fan of him playing off some weaker shooters and roaming a little bit, but I don’t even think he’ll be able to do that here if they’re not going double big. He’ll he’ll just have to be guarding centers. So, there’s a million questions defensively for this team that we’re just going to have to watch play out. and frantic effort and and you know just guys jumping in passing lanes and making those kind of plays is is going to be a lot of this especially Jaylen who you know preaches a lot of that stuff has talked a lot about it um you know he wants to be recognized in on the all defense level and I don’t think he’s quite been in that conversation yet. He’s definitely come a long way on that end and has taken on some big challenges and this year may might even have to be the communicator and all that. This could definitely be a year where he gets some recognition on that end. Um, but it’s going to be a big challenge for everybody including him. Yeah. And the one wild card I would throw into that mix is Xavier Tilman because I think Are you buying the hype? We got I don’t know if I’m buying the hype, but but if he is healthy and he can move, I certainly don’t buy the three-point hype. He has never been a good three-point shooter. Hasn’t come close to 30% for his career. Like I am not buying the Xavier Tilman three-point hype. However, we know that when he’s healthy, when he’s right physically, he is a great defender. Like, not just good, he’s great. And what they use, go back to that EPM stat you use, and he was up there with anybody defensively. And they used him in the finals where he was switching on to Luca and then switching on to Kyrie. There aren’t many big men in the league who can do that. He racks up steals. He racks up blocks. He’s very solid positionally. He’s just a super high IQ defender and you need a lot of that after losing Drew Holiday, Al Horford, Luke Cornet, Chris Asharing. They lost so much of their defensive fabric that if he can be uh just a playable offensive player, he’s not going to be a great offensive player. He doesn’t finish well enough. He’s not a super athlete. He’s not going to be a lob threat. Like I said, the the shooting has never been there, even though he says he’s he feels much more comfortable now. But his defense could be really important if he can stay on the court. And so, I think that’s a real wild card right now. Other than that, like you said, Jaylen’s going to have a lot on his shoulders. I think all the guards are going to have some serious responsibility, especially if they are pressuring and playing as fast as they’re saying they’re going to on defense. Then, you know, it’s Derek White is going to have a a lot of responsibilities. Pton Pritchard is going to have to be picking up full court and getting into guys. And he’s talked about wanting to be more disruptive, be more of a defensive playmaker versus just staying in front of guys and forcing tough shots. I I just think, you know, especially if you do play a lot of small lineups, those guys are going to have to be make guys uncomfortable on the other side. And there’s going to be a lot on Jaylen, a lot on Derek because they used to have all defensive caliber players basically everywhere. And I would throw Tatum into that mix. I would throw Al Horford. The Tatum was as big as anything. Rebounding all the positions he can guard. He guarded fives. He guarded fives. So, if if you start Sam Hower like we’ve been talking about, who guards fives? Does Jaylen guard fives? Do they do they do they just have Kada guard fives and then play more, you know, traditionally matchup wise? Cuz they’ve never wanted to do that. And I’m I’m really curious to see how how Joe approaches all that stuff and whether Jaylen or somebody else can can take on that challenge and do some of the stuff that that Jason Tatum did on a a nightly basis. Yeah. And you know, I’m I’m intrigued by Jaylen talking about being more of a defensive guy this year. And you know, when it came to proving himself and having that big year without Tatum, he’s not hyping that up much. Uh, so maybe he is gonna offload some of the offensive responsibility of the Pritchards, whites of the world, some of these other guys, and focus more on big defensive assignments. Obviously, it’s tough to do both, especially with the shoes he’s going to be in there. So, there’s a lot to parse out here. We’re less than a week from the first preseason game in Memphis, uh, which would be interesting. That’s not a super big team right now with all the injuries they have. Uh, so that’ll be a good opportunity for them to maybe go small and try that look and then maybe a little something different against the Raptors, Cavs, some of these other teams. They do have a pretty good preseason mix in terms of the types of teams they’re going against here. A huge team in Cleveland, a smaller team, you know, in Toronto and and Memphis to some degree. So, um, we’re less than a week away from some games here. There’s one other interesting thing I want to get to from the first couple days of camp here that we mentioned. Want to give a quick shout out to Game Time and uh that Red Sox game is underway down in New York. So if you’re in New York, if you’re in the Bronx and you’re, you know, a couple steps from Yankee Stadium, go over to Game Time, see what deals they got last minute here. I was looking earlier in the day. It was like 150. Uh the prices went up a little bit going into the day, you know, once they forced this game through here. But last minute sometimes the best time to go and get a deal over on game time and you get the Patriots playing. uh this weekend. That’s out in Buffalo if you want to drive out there. A lot of stuff going on these preseason games we mentioned as well coming up. Uh so all fees are included on game time so you know your total up front with no surprise fees at checkout. You can save even more when you choose a section like game time. Choose your seats and you can stag new ticket deals before anyone finds out by following your favorite teams in the game time app to receive alerts. Concerts going on right now as well. You can get panoramic view of your seat, see exactly where you’re going to be sitting in the app. That’s my favorite feature over there. And they got the lowest price guarantee. Your game time will credit you 110% of the difference. I’ve always loved using this app even before we partner with them here. And it’s a big time right now with a lot of events going on and for our coverage as well. So it helps us out a lot if you go over there and use the code CLNS. Download the Game Time app, create an account, use code CLNS to get $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Again, help us out. Get $20 off your first purchase for you. Use that code CNS. So, create an account, redeem that code, CLNS, swipe, tap, ticket, go, download the Game Time app today. Uh, socks are underway. I’m excited to go over there and check out that game. The last couple days have been awesome here. But I want to throw this at you, Jay. I’m I’m so curious what you thought of this. Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe it’s just Jordan Walsh being Jordan Walsh. Uh, but there was a weird weird miscommunication or something that went on over over the first couple days of practice here because Joe said Walsh was joking. It didn’t sound like Walsh was joking here. Think that going into this year taking advantage of my athleticism. Um, well will be my my winning point, my strong point. Um, I feel like I’ve come a long way with my three-point shot. I feel like if I’m open and I catch the ball, it’s going in. Um, and I feel like my team feels that way and I feel like the coaches and staff feel that way, too. So, um, just trying to use that to my advantage, like getting the respect of not just like our guys, but like the defenders to close out on me and then using my athleticism to get downhill, get to the rim, whatever, kick it, and then cut off of that, kick it, set a ball, screen, slip, whatever it is. Being more athletic, being more involved. I feel like in the past it’s been a lot of, you know, swing the ball, stand still, watch JT ISO, watch JBSO, set a ball, screen, ISO. And I think that what Joe wants is it to be more of a, you know, five in, five out type of rotation where it’s like we’re all going super hard, four or five minutes, boom, switch out, come in, new five, whatever, and then fight, fight, fight for four or five minutes. Yeah. I mean, everything just depends on how hard you’re playing and are you willing to execute. So whether it’s, you know, one sub, two sub, uh, it really doesn’t matter. At the end of the day, you just got to play hard and, uh, execute what we’re trying to do on any given night. And then, you know, whatever the game calls for that particular night, whatever makes the most sense, you know, we’ll do that. You talked about sports in the past. That type of hockey stuff had happened. Is that something you looked at with hockey or is it just the correlation? I’m not going to lie to you. Jordan just said that to mess with you guys. We’re not doing that. So, you know, you can I know you guys need the headline, but that’s not happening. So, don’t worry about that. Yeah. I mean, I I I I guess he either didn’t want it out there or Walsh mis misunderstood. I I don’t even know what to make of that. It was weird. My guess would be that that Joe indicated that they could sub quickly, play a lot of guys, um have short stints for guys, play four or five minutes at a time, play really hard, and then come out. The one thing that really stood out to me about the finals, and I’ve talked about this on on my podcast, but just how limited minutes the key guys played for the Thunder and the Pacers. Shay Gilders Alexander played 38 minutes per game in the finals. Nobody else on their team played more than 34. That was Jaylen Williams. Everybody else was like, I believe under 30. The Pacers, nobody even played 34 full minutes per game for them. They played a ton of guys. They had guys in, they took guys out. TJ McConnell came in totally changed the energy. Normally in the finals, you see like guys the the best players are playing 43 44 minutes a night, but the Thunder and Pacers, two teams that were able to just play harder than everybody and and and really like just beat teams with waves of energy. They kept their minutes down like to an extreme degree that we’ve probably never seen before in the finals. Maybe we have a long time ago. I don’t remember that. But I think it’s it that’s really interesting and I think that could be a trend that catches on and something that the Celtics especially without having um you know as many the type of top end talent that they used to have could could kind of lean on playing guys shorter spurts and having a ton of energy everywhere and and trying to make that part of their identity. Yeah. And I’m glad you brought that up because I I felt like somewhere along the line last postseason or somewhere last year, maybe it was the Magic. It might have been the Pacers. I know the Celtics didn’t play them in the playoffs, but someone on one of these teams was talking about like go hard for a couple minutes, then you sub out, let someone else go hard. Like it must have been Orlando because they had a pretty deep rotation. The Celtics played them. It could have been Oklahoma City or Indiana as you mentioned because they played like that to some degree, but someone was talking about that hockey sub style last, you know, season and I remember that pretty vividly, but I can’t remember exactly who it was. So, that was definitely something that was happening last year. The fullcourt press, which I know the Celtics were trying out here and there, didn’t utilize as well as some of these teams. Um, Indiana ended up doing that great. Um, there was just a lot of stuff going on. And Joe, despite pushing back on this, has said he’s studying league trends, has tried to stay ahead on on certain things other teams are doing well, um, and implementing them in Boston in his own way. So, I actually do think we’re going to see some of this. You said it earlier, like there’s not a lot of separation in their rotation. They want to play super hard, which is going to stress guys a little bit. And they have a bunch of interchangeable wings and energy guys here. I even go all the way down to Ugo Gonzalez who, you know, was playing in a professional league last year, not playing a ton in it and probably is a little bit of a long shot to be a rotation guy here, but if you’re going to go deeper in your rotation and just throw guys out there for energy, he’s a pretty big body and, you know, app cutter and solid defender who makes some sense if they’re going to play a larger rotation this season. So, I’m even interested and go back to that uh little scrimmage video, Jay. saw him out there in some of those lineups. So, knock down a three, I believe. Yeah. So, I think you could even see them go that deep into the rotation this year. There’s just a lot of different guys who bring a lot of different things to the table here and as you mentioned, not a lot of separation between them. Yeah, it’s it’s going to be really interesting to see Joe figure it out. And I think it’s a challenge that he relishes. Um he walked in his first year like they had they were coming off a trip to the finals. He didn’t I don’t think he felt fully that he could change things because everybody respected the way Eay put together the team. And you know, when Joe finally felt comfortable to to do things his way, it was like there wasn’t really any other way to do it. It was the the roster was good enough, the hierarchy was established enough that you didn’t have to make many changes. And this year, I think he can get a little creative. He can get a little funky and I I think that’s something that he’s going to have fun with. He’s Jay Kang. I’m about to go watch a baseball game. I’m sure you are too, Jay. Um I’m excited for this thing tonight. We got postgame coverage here on CNS Media. So goes are a loser franchise. I need this one tonight, man. I need them to go through and and are you uh are you going to Toronto next week? I will not be at either of the road preseason games. Okay. I’m I’m dreaming of this has a preseason game in Memphis. The schedule’s awful this preseason. Even uh early regular season, there’s a lot of road games. But regardless of what happens tonight, we will have coverage of it. Um go subscribe over on Red Sox Clubhouse. We will be live tonight, me, Jimmy, and uh John. Um so whatever happens, we’ll react to it in this game three. He’s going to decide Yankees and Red Sox seasons. Um go check out Jay’s work over at the athletics. Subscribe over there for a lot of great coverage of the Celtics and the entire NBA. Love all the NBA stuff they have over there. Um, and anything is potable. You guys still rolling. Still potable now. We We have changed names. Still potable, baby. Yep. So, go check them out. They’re um on the Patreon, right? Go subscribe over there on the Patreon. Um, and great to have you here, Jay. Thanks for hopping on tonight. I’ll see you at practice tomorrow. And for everybody else, we’ll see you later tonight with some socks reaction. And again, show some love to our sponsors here, prize picks, codes, as well as game time codes. Uh, talk to you in a couple hours here. Enjoy the game. No one’s sneaking a vegan brownie by me. I’ll tell you that. Okay. You know what, John? We’re going to do it. You have to feel that way, too, Bobby. I have to feel that way. Slide out over and and make Luke your first center. Bobby, we gave you Luke hour earlier. We are not going to end this on a damn conversation about Luke. [Music]

Bobby Manning welcomes Jay King from The Athletic to The Garden Report to discuss the start of Celtics training camp, biggest takeaways from the early practices and a sneak peak of who Boston might start when the preseason begins next week.