INSTANT REACTION: C’s close out preseason with late win, lose Jaylen Brown to hamstring tightness ☘️

INSTANT REACTION: C’s close out preseason with late win, lose Jaylen Brown to hamstring tightness ☘️

Sherman in. He’s got to get it in there. Finds Tilman for the win. 8 to play. No timeouts for the Raptors. Baseball pass. The game is over and the Celtics win the preseason finale. Tilman’s clutch. He did this last year against Sacramento and he backs it up again. That’s our go-to guy right there. The X Factor getting it done here to save everybody from an overtime game. Xavier Tilman and the Celtics. They go on to win the preseason game finale against Toronto. 110 to 108 the final. Things got dicey at the end. Welcome to Celtics postgame live. Eddie House, Caleb Burton, Chris Forsber here with you. Chris, what do you make of the overall preseason performance? And maybe we can actually give credit to X on that last. Yeah. So, first off, X even beyond the the the gamewinner there. Great little finish. had a couple big shots down the stretch. He, we all know the story, lost 12 pounds. Looks more spry out there. I feel good for him. X going to give it to you when you need it at the finish line of that game. Saves everyone from overtime. You should get a Nobel Peace Prize when you avoid overtime in the preseason. And so, all that’s good. I think what we learned tonight, my big takeaway is going to be like we’re left holding our breath about Jaylen Brown. Like, there’s a lot of good things happen this preseason. I’m I am excited about what’s ahead in this regular season and yet it’s a reminder of how slim the margins are. Even when you didn’t have Derek White or Pton Pritchard on the the court tonight, things got a little dicey. I still think Celt’s going to be much better than people think. But you need healthy Jaylen. You need healthy Derek White. You need healthy Peyton Pritchard. And so we’re kind of just like in wait and see mode now over the next seven days to know who’s going to be out there and if Jaylen’s going to be healthy enough. But everyone else who was on that court, there’s a lot of positives we can pluck in X’s chief among them. Yeah, you know, X equals no overtime, and I’m happy about that. Believe that. Uh, and so I’m I’mma go with you with, you know, our health. It’s it’s going to depend on the health of of this season. Um, and this is going to be a job for Joe Missoula. He’s going to have to manage minutes the right way. And so I think this is this is going to be one of the the the most uh interesting coaching jobs that he’s had so far as the coach for the Boston Celtics. You know what I mean? It’s going to be one of those challenging ones to where, okay, how do I do this? And night in and night out it might be different. You know, I think that that’s how this season is going to go. You might have you might lean on somebody different uh one game and then you might be leaning on somebody different in the next game and somebody that can give you you plug and play and I think that everybody showed that you could plug and play a lot of guys not went out there showed that he’s a guy that could be trusted obviously we know X could be trusted uh we know that Kada could be trusted u and then so the the core guys that have been here they they are They’re they are we’re going to have to lean on them a little bit more, but at the same time be able to blend it together. I think this is going to be one of the most challenging jobs for for for um for for Joe Mazula. Yeah, Eddie, you’re spot on. Joe Mazula does have his work cut out for him a little bit. You saw them trying to break that press, having some struggles. So, hey, sometimes it’s like coaching up some of these young guys and putting them in the right position because you’re not going to see Jason Tatum, at least early on. We didn’t see Jaylen Brown. You know, that does save them down the road. JB, Derek White, maybe even Peyton Pritchard in there, but just to work with some new guys and putting them in the right position. It also reminded me a little bit of the media day uh trying to break that press, which was a struggle. My forget about that. You got to forget about that. These players are way better. All right, Xavier Tilman standing by. He’s seven uh points and seven rebounds. He’s with Abby X. Congrats. What a finish. Take me through the shot. I mean, take me through the play. You know, it was, you know, good. We drew up a play for Ant and just in case they switched off, I had to be available. And when I caught it, I realized I was wide open for a floater. And you nailed it. What were you guys saying to yourself? What were you guys saying to each other in the huddle before that after the Raptors tie this at 108? We were trying to figure out what happened on the three and then and then we were kind of telling each other, “Calm down and relax and let’s go win the game.” How much redemption do you feel like you got after that the way things ended in Toronto? Uh, it was cool. It’s still the preseason, so we’re not going to take him too much, but at the same time, like to be able to to lose a lead by 11 and then still come back with a win shows our resilience. We just got to make sure we stop losing the leads. You know, we keep them. Elite rim protection tonight as well. How did you guys do that? Uh, this guy right here, I don’t know how many bucks he had. He might have had four, five, six, seven, or eight, but he was all over the floor today. And then finally, X. Clearly the chemistry developing pretty well here, I’d say. Yeah. I mean, the fact that everybody came back so early, midepptember, early September, you know, honestly, some people came back late August and we just got it in. We’re working out together and pushing each other. So, by the time we got to this point, you know, we just wanted to root each other on coming through on the floor. Congratulations. Thank you. I appreciate it. [Music] A great performance by Xavier Tilman as we welcome in both Drew and Scow. The Celtics guys finishing on a positive note to end the preseason game. How exciting was it for X to get up the way he did. A big rebound down the end of the stretch, a big clutch three that he’s been working on in the offseason. It’s nice to see him hit that last uh last point there, last bucket. Yeah, it’s it’s awesome, Kayla. He’s a guy who’s very easy to root for. He’s always smiling. We’ve talked about how mature he is. Even though he’s only 26 years old, he he feels a lot older than that. RJ Lewis called him OG and X was like, “I’m not that old.” But, you know, he feels like he is because everybody on the team obviously loves him. You could see him in that in that postgame interview. It’s a good point. The three-point shooting is was his biggest emphasis in the offseason. He made a big one and then that was that was a great shot to end the game. Yeah, showed good touch and um but you know, across the board, a lot of good uh contributions today from a lot of different people. I think to me Kada really stands out because I wasn’t sure when when we when he came back I have high expectations. We know the front court positions are available and Kada is a guy that I in my mind had pencileled in 22 minutes a night and after the first couple games I didn’t think that. So he’s proven that he can make an impact on winning and that’s that’s the key. It’s going to be a key for all of the front court players and X coming in and shooting that three in the fourth quarter. No hesitation whatsoever. The Celtics are going to need more of that from him. Yeah. And talking about Kada, you know, this entire off season and especially the last, you know, few weeks after he played for Portugal in Euro Basket, I thought for sure he would be the starting center, do you still think that Nimi gets a nod in the first game? I mean, if Embiid plays, yeah, but I think like it wouldn’t like I feel like four guys are going to start and I think the fifth guy will it it’ll kind of rotate around. Or if we play a massive team, let’s say Oklahoma City’s playing Chad and Isaiah Hartinstein together, we might go with a Kada Buché at the same time. But all I know is is the five spot is going to be a earn as you go type of position. Kada could be playing awesome start, have a bad three minutes, and they’ll go somewhere else. That’s just the way that it’s going to be this year for that group. And I think that they know that because those guys, if they play well, the sky’s is really the limit for us. If the front court can replicate, you know, last year we have Porzingis, Horford, and Cornet. Those guys were amazing. Chad GPT doesn’t know that though. Chad GPT. I had a conversation with Chad. You got him right though. Don’t worry. Like the AI is not taking over the world. They don’t know who’s on the Celtics right now. I corrected Chad GPT, but I was nice about it. So when they take everything over, they’re nice to me in return. But that that position will be, you know, fluid, I think, during the season and it’ll be matchup dependent. And Joe even said that before the game, you know, it’s nice to have a rotation, but it also can be a good thing not to have a defined rotation and allow guys to come in based on the matchup based on how people are playing. And yes, Kayla, after tonight, we will put it to bed. The the media game you cannot believe how bad that that clip. They did you dirty. That was wrong. That was wrong. I’m going to ask you. Hold on. What does Steve say about that clip? You know what? I didn’t even get a call from him. So, that’s worse. cuz usually he calls. He wants nothing to do with that. You saw that clip. That’s done. Hey, we are just like Eddie said, we’re putting it to rest right now. No more media talk. It’s over. It’s now time to focus on the Celtics because fellas, rest up. You got less than a week. One week away. Steve gave you the silent treatment at home. It’s a wrap. It is a wrap. Hey. Hey. Hey. Screenshot what Veronica said about your your layup. Yeah, I got you. I got you. Hey. Bye, guys. Appreciate you. See you next week. A week from today, the regular season begins.

Chris Forsberg and Eddie House join Kayla Burton to offer instant reaction and analysis following the Boston Celtics’ 110-108 win over the Toronto Raptors to close out the preseason. Xavier Tillman was the hero for Boston, sinking the game-winner with just over a second left in regulation, but the story of the game was Jaylen Brown, who left the game in the first half and did not return with a hamstring injury. Later, Abby Chin catches up with Tillman in an exclusive 1-on-1 interview and Brian Scalabrine and Drew Carter share their thoughts on the win.

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