Kristaps Porzingis was the Celtics‘ best player during the first half of his preseason debut with the team, according to Adam Himmelsbach of The Boston Globe. Boston traded for Porzingis this summer to add size to its frontcourt, and Himmelsbach observes that his 7’3″ presence clearly bothered the Sixers in the paint in Sunday’s game.
Porzingis made his first four shots from the field and finished with 17 points. Although he doesn’t present the lob threat that Robert Williams used to, Himmelsbach notes that the Celtics had success on a couple of attempts. Porzingis and Jayson Tatum also displayed some chemistry in their two-man game.
“It’s super easy, honestly,” Porzingis said. “Those guys are so talented. Jayson draws so much attention that it opens things up for me and that’s a perfect scenario for me. So I’m looking forward to more of those two-man, three-man actions where it’s really hard to guard, because we don’t even know what we’re going to do. We’re freestyling it and playing off of each other. So it has to be pretty impossible for the other team to understand what’s going to happen.”
There’s more on the Celtics:
- Jrue Holiday came off the bench Sunday, but that’s because he wasn’t able to join the team for practice until Wednesday, writes Brian Robb of MassLive. Holiday admits being “shocked” that the Bucks sent him to Portland in the Damian Lillard deal, but he’s ready to concentrate on basketball after being dealt twice within a week. “I think I’m over it at this point,” Holiday said. “Trying to focus on the season. Trying to get acclimated and honestly go out there and have fun. All the trade stuff I think has passed. Just trying to figure out names and plays and schemes and all of that stuff. It’s been fun though.”
- The Clippers were Boston’s main competition for Holiday, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski stated during the network’s pre-game show before Sunday’s contest (Twitter link). “They were very close on Jrue Holiday,” Wojnarowski said. “They had a package that Portland really had to labor over before they went to the Celtics’ package.”
- Celtics officials are disappointed to see Jay Scrubb‘s progress interrupted by a torn ACL he suffered in Saturday’s practice, per Souichi Terada of MassLive. They signed the 23-year-old guard to a two-way contract this summer. “It’s painful to see him have to go through that because of this mindset that he’s brought from training camp and really in Summer League,” coach Joe Mazzulla said. “As I told him, these are the type of things that guys have to just work through.”