The NBA preseason ended early for Jayson Tatum, Paul George and the rest of the Celtics’ big names.
Boston held eight of its regulars out of Friday night’s exhibition finale in Philadelphia, resting Tatum, George, Derrick White, Mitchell Robinson, Neemias Queta, Payton Pritchard and Sam Hauser ahead of Tuesday’s regular-season curtain-raiser in Detroit. Veteran Mike Conley also got the night off.
What did the remaining collection of rookies, backups and roster hopefuls do in their absence? Only pull off an upset over the near-full-strength, superteam 76ers.
The Celtics, who have touted their depth since training camp began, rallied from a 14-point third-quarter deficit to force overtime, then outplayed Philly’s backups in the extra session to win 125-120 and cap a perfect 4-0 preseason.
Second-round rookie Dillon Mitchell scored a go-ahead transition dunk with 3:02 to play in OT, and 3-pointers by Mitchell and undrafted rookie Milos Uzan sealed the win for the severely shorthanded C’s.
It was a performance reminiscent of Game 82 of last season, when Boston sat nearly its entire rotation and still beat the Orlando Magic.
“Nobody expected us to win (Friday), especially when we roll out that lineup and they see who’s playing or who’s not playing,” wing Ron Harper Jr. said in a postgame interview with NBC Sports Boston sideline reporter Abby Chin. “But, you know, we don’t really care. We just go out there and play Boston Celtics basketball, and we find a way to get it done.”
The game also featured Jaylen Brown’s first unofficial appearance against the Celtics since his offseason trade to Philly after he, LeBron James and Joel Embiid all sat out last Saturday’s exhibition matchup at TD Garden. The 2024 champion won’t need to wait much longer to face a fully loaded Boston squad, as the Celtics are set to return to Philly on Nov. 10.
Four takeaways from Friday’s win:
1. Welcome to the NBA, fellas
The 76ers fielded four-fifths of their star-studded starting lineup, sending out Brown, James, Embiid and Tyrese Maxey and playing them deep into the second half. Their only fill-in, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope (in for VJ Edgecombe), is a 13-year veteran who’s played nearly 1,000 games.
Facing them were four Celtics starters who have never seen regular-season NBA action (first-round draft pick Chris Cenac Jr., undrafted rookies Uzan and Tucker DeVries, and G Leaguer Gabe McGlothan), and a fifth who’s made one career appearance in the show (second-year guard Hayden Gray, who jumped from the Maine Celtics to the tanking Utah Jazz late last season).
Uzan, DeVries, McGlothan and Gray are on Exhibit-10 tryout contracts, hoping to play their way into the Celtics’ final open two-way slot. Cenac is a 19-year-old rookie who isn’t expected to see much early playing time behind Robinson, Queta and Luka Garza.
Bit of a mismatch, to say the least. But that bottom-of-the-roster bunch more than held its own.
“We just wanted to reward these guys,” acting head coach Sam Cassell told reporters in a postgame news conference. “… We gave them an opportunity to start. It’s a big thing to being a starter for the Boston Celtics, and it’s something I’m pretty sure none of them will ever forget in their lives.”
Uzan opened the scoring with a straightaway 3-pointer. Cenac stole an entry pass from Maxey to Embiid. Gray picked off a long-range Maxey pass, raced down the court and dumped a pass to a trailing Cenac for a fast-break dunk.
The lineup’s opening six-minute shift ended with Boston facing a manageable 16-12 deficit. The huge talent disparity eventually showed — Cenac had some understandably difficult possessions against James and Embiid and was a minus-14 — but the game remained close throughout. Philly led 60-58 at halftime, and threes by McGlothan, Uzan and Gray prevented the Sixers from pulling away late in the third quarter.
Two triples by DeVries, who’d been scoreless to that point, cut it to 94-92 early in the fourth. Another put Boston ahead 102-100 with six minutes to play. Harper hit two game-tying jumpers in the final 2:16 to help force OT.
Cenac had 12 points, eight rebounds, one block and one steal before fouling out late in regulation. Uzan scored five of his 14 points in overtime. McGlothan pulled down 13 offensive rebounds, including five offensive boards, and Gray contributed seven assists and three steals. DeVries shot 3-for-10 but made his three makes count.
“It says a lot about us,” Harper told Chin. “The red squad got the start today. We’re all really happy for them. They deserve it. They’ve been working their a— off all training camp. Never complained. They just did what we asked them, and they pushed us to get better. So we rolled those five guys out in confidence. They came out here and they played really well, and I’m really happy for them.”
President of basketball operations Brad Stevens has until Monday to decide which of Boston’s tryout players will stick around on a two-way contract. The Celtics’ fifth E-10 signee, 2024 lottery pick Devin Carter, impressed in the first preseason game but missed the final three (illness).
More established Celtics role players Baylor Scheierman, Hugo Gonzalez, Jordan Walsh, Garza and Harper subbed in en masse midway through the first quarter and played starters’ minutes until the middle of the third.
2. Brown busy
After participating only in warmups in his first trip back to Causeway Street, Brown saw plenty of work in this one. He logged a game-high 31 minutes and wasn’t shut down by head coach Nick Nurse until the 7:51 mark of the fourth quarter.
Brown started slowly but found his stride after bullying his way through multiple Celtics defenders on a first-quarter and-one. The former C’s star scored 14 of his 20 points in the first half. He shot 7-for-9 from inside the arc (though just 1-for-5 from three and 3-for-5 from the foul line) and added eight rebounds, three assists, two blocks and a steal.
After the game, Brown lingered on the court, catching up with some of his former teammates.
“It was good to see some of the young guys,” Brown told reporters. “I spent a lot of time with those guys. To see them developing, getting better, it was good to see.”
Asked whether he was glad to get these first Celtics matchups “out of the way” during the preseason, Brown replied: “I’m not sure how to answer that. You know, I played there for 10 years, so that’ll never be out of the way.”
3. Hugo stays hot
Gonzalez made clear earlier this week that his “first job is to be a great defender.” But if he can shoot the way he did this preseason, he’d also give the Celtics a nice boost on the offensive end.
A respectable 36.2% 3-point shooter as a rookie, Gonzalez shot a sizzling 55% from deep (11-for-20) over Boston’s four warmup games. He scored in double figures in three of them, tallying 15 points against Cleveland, 17 in the first Sixers matchup and a team-high 21 in Friday’s rematch. Those would have been his highest, third-highest and fourth-highest scoring outputs last season.
Gonzalez was 6-for-9 from the field Friday, though he did get away with a blatant uncalled travel after stealing the ball from Brown and trotting in for a fast-break dunk.
Scheierman — the other half of the wing duo the team has dubbed “The Hermanos” — wasn’t nearly as efficient. He went 1-for-6 from distance and 1-for-11 overall, including some ill-advised drives that went nowhere.
Harper was disappointed with his shooting (7-for-20; 1-for-9 from three), but he put in 34 minutes after missing the first half of the preseason with a shoulder injury, and hit some big shots late.
4. Cassell cameo
After splitting head-coaching duties between Tony Dobbins and DJ MacLeay in Boston’s preseason opener, Joe Mazzulla let another of his assistants coach Friday’s finale.
That honor went to Cassell, the most experienced of Mazzulla’s lieutenants. Cassell, 56, has been in the NBA since 1993 as a player or coach but has never held a head-coaching job.
“You know, Joe is Joe,” Cassell said in a pregame sitdown with NBC Sports Boston’s Brian Scalabrine. “I don’t think too many coaches in this league would grant his assistant coaches the opportunity to coach a preseason game like this, but I’m grateful for it. That’s my guy. You know how much I care about him, and vice versa.”
The Celtics also had their second-row assistants (Amile Jefferson, Ross McMains, Tyler Lashbrook) take on larger roles on Cassell’s staff.