NEW YORK — Jordan Walsh didn’t know he would start for the first time this season, and for only the third time into his third year in the NBA, until he looked up at the pre-game matchup powerpoint.
“You see your name up there, and it’s like, oh, alright cool,” Walsh told CLNS Media last week. “I was shocked. I didn’t expect it, but obviously once that initial shock went away of like oh, I’m starting? Alright cool, let me lock in, then it’s like, now how do I maintain it for as long as possible? What did I do to get here and then how do I keep it?”
Walsh earned that role over the last three Celtics games, all wins, after beginning the season as a DNP-CD or logging fewer than three minutes through the first six. His emergence felt like a revelation, a defensive, rebounding wing who could knock down a shot (7-17 3PT, 41.2%). He guarded Paolo Banchero, Tyrese Maxey, Jaren Jackson Jr. and finally James Harden effectively until Harden’s late explosion nearly flipped Sunday’s game toward the Clippers. While Joe Mazzulla wouldn’t console Walsh for his effort after Harden scored 37 points and nearly tied the game late, Mazzulla credited the 21-year-old’s preparation, IQ and defensive attention to detail as a driving force behind his rise.
But as was the case with this Celtics team through 15 games, nothing lasts long, uncertainty Mazzulla argued as a strength for the team since the early days of training camp. Boston pivoted from Walsh 90 seconds into the second half to Josh Minott, who provided 10 points and four rebounds in a resurgent effort before Sam Hauser sparked a 23-9 closing run with a steal, three and +15 minutes in the win. Walsh logged 11 minutes. After a milestone week in his early career, it wasn’t his night.
“It’s not necessarily energy,” Mazzulla said of his rotation decisions. “You can just tell. We got guys that can bring different things to the game. So I think that flexibility and that depth, we have to take advantage of as a team. I think it gives us the best chance to win every night, to be able to go to different stuff gives us the best chance to be successful over the long run, and the guys are doing a good job of it.”
Ahead of a rematch with a perimeter-oriented Brooklyn team on Friday that deploys mostly guards and wings, Hauser could return to the starting lineup that he began the year with after scoring eight points with seven rebounds, three assists and two steals in the first half of home-and-home. Wednesday’s closing lineup could also exist in a vacuum as what fit a night where Jaylen Brown logged only 10 first half minutes before closing for 22 of the final 24. Luka Garza finished over starting lineup staple Neemias Queta after the latter ran into foul trouble, and Anfernee Simons became the beneficiary of Brown sitting out after playing lethargically early.
The Hauser decision paid off four minutes after he entered alongside Brown, Baylor Scheierman and Derrick White at the start of the fourth. He pressured Terance Mann at half court, punched the ball free and secured it after fumbling with it into the back court for a moment. Then, he tossed to Queta, who drove, dunked and broke a 90-90 tie. Simons, Scheierman, Hauser, Brown and Queta did not register among the team’s regular rotations to begin the year, Scheierman out of the mix often and Hauser falling even further behind him in the rotation on Sunday, when he appeared for seven minutes. That proved as challenging for the veteran and champion as it did for a young cast preparing for uneven roles. He averaged 3.0 points per game and shot 18% FG over his last nine.
“Of course, it’s hard,” Hauser said. “But you have to roll with the punches and take advantage of the time you are out there and still try to help the team win, and try to be external and not internal. It’s hard in the moment. Don’t think about yourself, think about the team first. If you’re thinking about yourself, your head’s not in the right place and it’s gonna be a lot of that this year, changing lineups, rotations, just trying to figure out what works. The other game, a different lineup was working, so he rolled with that and that’s cool. You just have to trust it.”
Walsh’s impact suited the craftier Philadelphia and Clipper guards and the bruising bigs Orlando and Memphis deployed. After studying Harden’s game, trying to force him away from his left and giving him room to shoot to prevent fouling, he planned for the Michael Porter Jr. matchup. Porter scored 25 points on 8-for-16 shooting, too tall and adept at creating his own shot while impacting the boards early too succumb to the pressure Walsh created previously. The Celtics also turned the ball over too much to defend in the half court, where Walsh thrived, getting outscored 22-0 in the first half in fast break points after committing 12 turnovers.
Mazzulla enjoyed another quick shift from what worked two days prior. While acknowledging a story Walsh told at shootaround about Brown suggesting that Walsh play more to provide defensive pressure against the opponent’s best players, Mazzulla stressed at practice last week that locking into those roles mentally can breed complacency.
Now, Walsh faces the hurdle Minott and Hauser struggled through before him, and for Hauser, fittingly, the play of the game came doing what Walsh did throughout the past week — pressuring the ball at half court. If those two do flip on Friday, however, it won’t change what the Celtics expect from Walsh off the bench.
“I’d say there’s an upside and downside to everything,” Mazzulla said of having set rotations. “It could lose a lack of sense of urgency, it could breed entitlement and it could breed an inability to be flexible if you go against a team or a set of games to where you have to go to something different … the downside (of no rotations) could be hey, you may not play for two games. But the upside is there’s a clear understanding of, that doesn’t change a role. That may change playing time, it doesn’t change a role. This is your role regardless of if it’s 20 minutes per night or two minutes per night.”
“So the upside is I think you get the best of each guy, and everyone comes into the building knowing they have to prepare themselves to impact winning and that every possession does matter, because you may go to a guy for two possessions because he can guard that situation differently … to me, the upside (is) validation that every guy has importance … there’s no entitlement. You have to be able to bring it every single night.”
