INSTANT REACTION: C’s newcomers creating ‘A TON OF HYPE’ after impressive preseason-opening win 😤

INSTANT REACTION: C’s newcomers creating ‘A TON OF HYPE’ after impressive preseason-opening win 😤

[Music] [Applause] for do. Oh yeah, he got laying that one up. Ugo Gonzalez with two of his eight points as he was one of those fresh faces that popped in this one. Celtics win their preseason opener. Final score 121 103. Celtics postgame live. Tom Giles, Chris Forsber, Eddie House with you here. Eddie, I’ll start with you. Big picture thoughts on what you saw in these first 48 minutes. Well, I thought everybody that came out played extremely hard, like I said, at halftime. Um, they all played with a purpose on both ends of the floor. Um, I think the one thing that, and Scout kept harping on it, and I think Forsber, you might have hit on it in pregame, was the fact that we got to we got to rebound the basketball. That’s going to be something that’s going to be um we don’t want that to be our Achilles heel, but we have to get better at rebounding. And sometimes it doesn’t have to always fall on your big man. you have to gang rebound at times, but I loved what I seen from Ugo. I I never seen him play before. Um, but you always got to trust Brad Stevens and what he brings to the table and, um, I I thought Buchet played well. Um, you know, it’s a lot of guys that came out there and gave great effort. Yeah, I think this checked a lot of the boxes, right? Like Jaylen looked great from the start, played with great pace, looked like he’s in mid-season form, even had a little two-handed shove, got a little frisky out there. I’m sure Joe loved that. Derek White with the assist. You know, this you wanted to see that the steadiness from your veterans, but invariably I go back to the newcomers because they were the big question mark coming in and I walk away with a ton of hype. Like you could hear Ugo Mania running wild out there. You could tell there was some buzz in camp about the way he played. They had a video of him playing spike ball and he’s diving on the ground trying to keep balls alive and you can see it translate now on the basketball court with the way that he plays and that that I mean the whole newsroom lit up when he made that little true deflection at midcourt and went the other way. So I will overreact to one game and I really like what I saw from him and Minot and Garza. All these guys look like they can help you kind of form together a second unit. Like Eddie said, rebounding concern. We got to see what looks like when Kate is out there when you’re looking more full. But man, for the first night, I feel really bullish about these guys and what the Celtics can do to put together a second unit. All right, you mentioned one of those names right there, Luca Garza, one of those newcomers to this Celtics team. He’s actually standing by with Abby Chin back at the FedEx Forum. Luca, congratulations. Convincing win here. First game of the preseason coming off a tough camp. What did you see carry over? It was a lot of fun. I mean, I think we really played with a lot of pace. That’s something we’ve been trying to work on in practice, but you know, playing with pace, but playing with a high level of awareness as well and not just playing fast, but playing smart and playing hard. So, I think we did a really good job of that through the whole game. Solid outing for you as well. A double double, got to the line, feasted in the third quarter. How did it feel? It felt great. You know, it’s awesome to put this uniform. This is a amazing opportunity for myself and I’m just excited to be a part of the Celtics and do whatever I can to help the team win. Man, all glory to God. Brian Scallivini, our analyst, praised your timing on setting screens. How has that developed for you? Yeah, I mean, I think that’s one of my, you know, biggest skills and one thing I can bring to this team is help get guys open. You know, we have so many elite players, especially off ball screens. We talk about Peyton Anthony, JB, uh, you know, obviously Derek White as well. Like, you got to get them open and uh, so it’s all about time. It’s all about hitting them at the right time, getting a little bit separation to get downhill cuz when they do, our offense just goes and we can get so many different types of shots. Finally, all eyes on that battle in the front court. What did you guys learn about each other? It felt like the chemistry was on display already. Yeah, it’s a battle, but you know, we’re a team, man. All all three of us guys are working hard every single day. And uh you know, it’s it’s iron sharp sharpens iron every day in training camp. Uh you know, every day every every game we approach, you know, we’re a team out here. We’re a unit that’s going to go out and compete against the best bigs in the league. And uh we’re going to hold our own. Luka, thank you. Congratulations. Absolutely. Appreciate it. All right. Thank you, Abby. 10 points, 10 rebounds for Luca Garz as the Celtics take care of business in their first preseason game. Best Luca in the league. They got the Raptors coming up on Friday in Toronto. And of course, we’re still two weeks away now from the regular season tipping off, but we’re going to set it back out to FedEx form. We got Drew and Scall standing by. And I heard you guys, Scal in particular, at the beginning of that second quarter. That group uh really getting things moving. But your overall thoughts, fellas, on what you saw here tonight? Yeah, Tommy, I thought it was really impressive, at least at the start when when Jaylen and Derek were out there and they were playing fast. They were playing the way that we kind of expected them to need to play and were kind of hoping that we would see. And I thought the new guys were were really impressive, Scout. Especially Garza and May not. Yeah, I’ll go Garza May not uh Buché. I thought that his energy and that group every time Buché was in it felt like like the team was playing a lot harder, making the hustle plays, getting defensive rebounds, running the floor. So, a lot of good things I saw. We know that Derrick White and and Jaylen Brown are going to be sensational. Those aren’t the question marks that we have this season. The question marks on the front court players and some guys today, you know, answered some of those, but you know, I know it wasn’t against uh Jiren Jackson Jr. or Zack Edy, but we’re going to find out throughout this season, but I’m optimistic about it. Yeah, with Garza, I mean, do you see him as more of a four or five in the modern NBA? I’m not 100% sure on that yet. I do know that when he plays five offensively, he’s not only good for himself, like rolling to the cup, he’s also going to be good for everybody else. Like, knowing how to screen, when to get out of a screen, all that screen timing stuff is is really next level. And it helps guards, it helps wing players get it going. There’s going to be a lot of guys that are going to call Luca Garza over for a screen. so they can get downhill and he he just has like really good timing of coming off of that. So I think that’s an advantage. I know he could shoot the the three. We didn’t see a lot of that today from him, but I just I’m not sure if he’ll play, you know, two big double big lineups and and he could be an interchangeable with like a Bouchet playing four and five. For sure. Well, you talked about Luke Cornet’s screening all the time. I think that was probably the most underrated part of his game and why he was so impactful out there and we saw Luca Garza do a ton of that tonight. And then you said it’s it’s a little bit of Cornet and a little bit of Al Horford in his game, which has got to be exciting for Celtics fans. He’s got a little cornet. He’s not quite as tall as Luke, though, so Abby doesn’t have to hold the mic quite as high quite as high. But Luca Gars, I’m telling you, man, he’s an impressive guy and it’s it’s nice for him to finally get his chance to maybe get some extended run cuz when he was with Detroit and with and with Minnesota, he barely played, but when he got minutes, he always performed. Yeah. I just think that like in in modern NBA when you have a bunch of wings and guys that can shoot the three and take it off the bounce, you just want a guy that can screen like that. Ask Eddie House when he plays with me how much how easy it is to play. I mean, you you don’t have to we don’t have to ask anybody else. You got a guy right there in his closet and he’s really he’s going to tell you playing with Scal makes life easy in his closet. It’s just like just like broadcasting with Scout Giles. It’s so easy when you get to be next to this guy and on the same team. All right, fellas. And also appreciate the Nor Eastern talk at the end of the game there. Nor Eastern basketball, you know, making it. You’re the gambling in Northeastern guy. Set the spread. So, what’s the spread on that? I think it probably be higher than 22. Be Forsber sitting next to me. We’re looking at it like, uh, it seems a little low. Uh, you’re talking about NBA players. Come on, man. 121 103 your final

Chris Forsberg and Eddie House join Tom Giles to offer instant reaction and analysis to the Boston Celtics’ 121-103 win over the Memphis Grizzlies to open the team’s preseason slate. Boston’s newcomers, including Chris Boucher, Luka Garza, Josh Minott and rookie Hugo Gonzalez all impressed in their debuts with the team. Later, Abby Chin catches up with Garza in an exclusive 1-on-1 interview, and Brian Scalabrine and Drew Carter share their impressions after the game.

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