{"id":559653,"date":"2026-01-25T10:03:33","date_gmt":"2026-01-25T10:03:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/559653\/"},"modified":"2026-01-25T10:03:33","modified_gmt":"2026-01-25T10:03:33","slug":"after-late-call-up-celtics-rookie-delivers-in-double-ot-in-win-over-nets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/559653\/","title":{"rendered":"After late call-up, Celtics rookie delivers in double-OT in win over Nets"},"content":{"rendered":"

Amari Williams expected to be playing Friday night \u2014 but for the Maine Celtics, not their NBA parent club.<\/p>\n

But after starting center Neemias Queta came down with an illness before Boston\u2019s game in Brooklyn, the team called up Williams for extra frontcourt insurance. And after Queta and his backup, Luka Garza, both fouled out, head coach Joe Mazzulla turned to the rookie two-way player to help the Celtics secure one of their wildest wins of the season<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Williams, after sitting for all of regulation and nearly the entire first overtime session, subbed in with 7.9 seconds left, received a long-range inbounds pass from Sam Hauser and fed Payton Pritchard for a quick 3-pointer.<\/p>\n

After fellow rookie Hugo Gonzalez hit a last-second corner three on the next Celtics possession to force a second OT, Williams played the rest of the way. He converted a go-ahead and-one layup \u2014 just the second made field goal of his young NBA career \u2014 and later punctuated Boston\u2019s 130-126 victory by swatting away a shot from Nets guard Nolan Traore with 40.6 seconds to play.<\/p>\n

The late block capped a whirlwind day for the second-round draft pick.<\/p>\n

\u201cFunny enough, this game, I flew in two hours before from Maine,\u201d Williams told reporters<\/a> postgame, via CLNS Media. \u201cI did the shootaround this morning, thought I was going to play there tonight, and then Neemi wasn\u2019t feeling great, so I flew in today. Just kind of being ready for whatever. You don\u2019t really know until you get here if you\u2019re going to suit up or not, so just kind of being ready for whatever.\u201d<\/p>\n

Williams also held up well on the glass in his five minutes of floor time. The Nets registered just one offensive rebound in double OT after pulling down 12 between the fourth quarter and the first overtime.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmari comes in, he ain\u2019t played much this year, and big rebounds, a big and-one, a blocked shot,\u201d Payton Pritchard said in a postgame interview with NBC Sports Boston\u2019s Abby Chin. \u201cIt takes a team, man. Everybody\u2019s stepping up, and tonight, we needed it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Drafted 46th overall out of Kentucky last summer, Williams has logged just 52 minutes for Boston this season, most of those coming late in blowouts. But he\u2019s posted encouraging numbers in the G League, averaging 17.3 points, 11.7 rebounds, 4.4 assists and 1.8 blocks since Maine\u2019s regular season began.<\/p>\n

Mazzulla praised the 23-year-old for his readiness.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor Amari to be able to sit through the entire game and be ready and execute some of the plays that we\u2019ve gone over in practice, it\u2019s a credit to him and the coaching staff,\u201d the Celtics coach told reporters in Brooklyn. \u201cThose are the guys that work with him, getting him ready to go, and say the same thing for Hugo\u2019s mindset. Those guys made big plays, and the (player development) staff gets those guys ready to go every day.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Amari Williams expected to be playing Friday night \u2014 but for the Maine Celtics, not their NBA parent…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":559654,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3767],"tags":[3602,67662,7,75,670,247,3803,46,62837,3528,2675,6,671],"class_list":["post-559653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn-nets","tag-amari-williams","tag-amari-williams-celtics","tag-basketball","tag-boston-celtics","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-nets","tag-brooklynnets","tag-celtics","tag-celtics-nets","tag-hugo-gonzalez","tag-joe-mazzulla","tag-nba","tag-nets"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115955172505533407","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=559653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559653\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/559654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=559653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=559653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=559653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}