{"id":699226,"date":"2026-04-05T06:55:31","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T06:55:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/699226\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T06:55:31","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T06:55:31","slug":"celtics-notes-queta-mazzulla-pritchard-vucevic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/699226\/","title":{"rendered":"Celtics Notes: Queta, Mazzulla, Pritchard, Vucevic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Center was viewed as a potential Celtics\u2018 weakness heading into the season, but Neemias Queta<\/a> has turned aside any doubts about whether he can handle the position, Adam Himmelsbach of The Boston Globe<\/a> writes in a subscriber-only story. Queta continued his career-best season on Friday with 19 points, 10 rebounds and a plus-33 rating in a win over Milwaukee.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s unbelievable,\u201d Jayson Tatum<\/a> said. \u201cI couldn\u2019t be more proud and happy for Neemy. The way he\u2019s seeing the game, the leap he\u2019s made as a screener, as a passer, someone we can trust when we throw him the ball in the seams, finishing, protecting the rim. He is an NBA starting big man, that\u2019s who he is now. He\u2019s only going to continue to get better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Queta had only made six total starts in four seasons before being asked to take over when Al Horford<\/a> and Luke Kornet<\/a> left in free agency and Kristaps Porzingis<\/a> was traded in a cost-cutting move. Through 72 games, he\u2019s averaging 10.1 points, 8.4 rebounds and 1.3 blocks in 25.4 minutes per night, and his emergence is one of the reasons Boston has been able to post the second-best record in the East.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think maybe at the beginning of the year we didn\u2019t trust him as much as we do now, and now every time we throw it to him, we expect him to make the right read and right play,\u201d Derrick White<\/a> said. \u201cHe\u2019s developed a lot of confidence, and we all have confidence in him.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s more from Boston:<\/p>\n

Joe Mazzulla dismissed Coach of the Year honors recently as a \u201cstupid award,\u201d<\/a> but Payton Pritchard<\/a> thinks he deserves to win it, Himmelsbach adds. Mazzulla is considered one of the leading candidates, along with Detroit\u2019s JB Bickerstaff. \u201cHe\u2019s a competitor, and he focuses on how this team is going to get better and better,\u201d Pritchard said. \u201cHe changed some things up this year as far as film sessions. He went to more, instead of a dictatorship, like a classroom setting where we\u2019re just going to learn through all the ups and downs in that setting.\u201d
\nNikola Vucevic<\/a>, who has been sidelined with a fractured finger<\/a> since March 6, could make his return Sunday afternoon against Toronto, per Souichi Terada of MassLive<\/a>. Vucevic was acquired from Chicago at the trade deadline, but was only available for 12 games before the injury forced him to undergo surgery. He was originally projected to be reevaluated in three to four weeks, and a Sunday return would have him back on the court in a little less than a month. Terada expects him to replace Luka Garza<\/a> as the primary backup center.
\nVucevic will be playing for his next contract when he returns, Brian Robb of MassLive<\/a> states in a mailbag column. The 35-year-old big man has a $21.4MM expiring deal, and Robb suggests that his salary for next season might be less than half of that. The Celtics could be interested if he plays well in the postseason, but only at a low-cost, one-year deal because they still might be focused on avoiding the luxury tax. Robb adds that the Celtics may also be considering a younger option on the offseason trade market.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Center was viewed as a potential Celtics\u2018 weakness heading into the season, but Neemias Queta has turned aside…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":699227,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3766],"tags":[7,45,75,3798,46,2675,17915,6,4986,3853,405],"class_list":{"0":"post-699226","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boston-celtics","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-boston","10":"tag-boston-celtics","11":"tag-bostonceltics","12":"tag-celtics","13":"tag-joe-mazzulla","14":"tag-luka-garza","15":"tag-nba","16":"tag-neemias-queta","17":"tag-nikola-vucevic","18":"tag-payton-pritchard"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116350794893926579","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699226","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=699226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699226\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/699227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=699226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=699226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=699226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}