Boston Celtics
For the third straight game, the Celtics played a hyper-aggressive style of defense.
Hugo González and the Celtics’ second unit pulled together an impressive showing against the 76ers, rallying late to claim a 125-120 win in overtime.
Here are the takeaways.
Hugo González showed his enormous potential
González came off the bench on Friday— temporary head coach Sam Cassell, who filled in admirably for Joe Mazzulla, put out a starting lineup in which only rookie Chris Cenac will enter the regular season with a fully guaranteed contract.
As is so often the case with González, there was a lot to like. Defensively, he and Jordan Walsh combined to force several turnovers — one player or the other would stand up a Sixers opponent defensively, and the other snuck in to force the turnover. Together, they combined for three steals.
One of those turnovers led to perhaps the most lowlight-adjacent highlight of González’s career to date — a dunk in transition that required roughly seven stutter steps, which somehow went uncalled by the officials.
Setting aside his lengthy dribble-free journey down the floor, González scored 21 points in just under 20 minutes of game time to go with four rebounds and three assists.
Most notably, he has looked really comfortable from 3-point range in the preseason, and that continued with his 3-for-7 performance against the Sixers. He finished 11-for-20 in the Celtics’ four exhibition games, and his work in the offseason was evident — his shot looks far more compact and far quicker out of his hands than last year, and he hit them in a variety of settings.
Shooting is, of course, González’s swing skill: If he doesn’t improve much as a 3-point shooter, he should still have a decent NBA career given how hard he plays, how well he defends, how well he slashes to the rim, and how versatile he is with the ball in his hands.
If he can develop a reliable 3-point shot, however, his ceiling is difficult to spot.
The Celtics swarmed for the third straight game
For the third straight game, the Celtics played a hyper-aggressive style of defense.
After recording 16 steals in each of the last two games, Friday’s lineups were even more willing to risk everything to force a turnover, and while the Sixers found a rhythm eventually and built a double-digit lead, they looked uncomfortable facing an entire team of G-League-bound Belgian Malinois chomping at the ball and trying to speed them up.
The Celtics were equally sloppy (the Sixers finished with 14 steals to Boston’s 13), but the swarming extended to the offensive glass, where the Celtics outrebounded the Sixers 18-5. The Celtics won in no small part because even a team with LeBron James, Jaylen Brown, Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey will have a difficult time winning when the other team takes 18 more field-goal attempts.
We should note, of course, that the Celtics truly won because the Sixers didn’t play their stars down the stretch — with James, Embiid and Maxey sidelined, the Celtics got the game close, and when Brown exited, they finally pulled away.
Still, the second unit players stayed attached just long enough to give themselves a chance late. Nobody expects Hayden Gray to be able to stop Tyrese Maxey, but that the Celtics were still within striking distance when the stars began to trickle out of the game spoke volumes about how hard players like Gray and Milos Uzan played.
Chris Cenac played a classic big role
Cenac fouled out in fewer than 20 minutes, which is a rite of passage for a young big trying for the first time to guard Joel Embiid — both of the league’s largest individuals and one of the league’s most prolific foul baiters.
Still, in those halcyon 19-and-a-half minutes, Cenac once again showed a lot of promise. In previous games, he has impressed with his perimeter ability — most notably an eye-opening proclivity for handling the ball — but against the Sixers, he showed more signs of a classic big man with eight rebounds and a blocked shot (which prompted NBC Sports Boston’s Drew Carter to offer an inspired “Cenac that!” call to the cadence of Akon’s hit song “Smack That”).
Cenac also posted 12 points — he looked good as a roller in the pick-and-roll, but he also displayed great timing cutting from the corner for one two-handed slam, and he deftly worked his way into the paint off the dribble against Jabari Walker in the fourth quarter.
Cenac is almost certainly headed to Maine for most of the year, and he’s still raw enough that it feels like if he gets major minutes in Boston, something will have gone very wrong.
However, he showed more than enough in the preseason to make one wonder what Celtics University could do for a young big with his potential.
Ron Harper Jr. hit some big shots
After a very brief stint against the Hornets on Wednesday, Ron Harper Jr. played 35 minutes against the Sixers and ran the show down the stretch as the Celtics attempted to close the door.
Harper got a little shot happy, going 7-for-20 from the field and 1-for-9 from deep, but he was asked to bail the Celtics out of some tough situations when their half-court offense got bogged down.
More importantly, he made two huge shots in the closing minutes — one aggressive left-handed finish at the rim to even the score at 113 with just over two minutes remaining, and a spinning fadeaway jumper with under a minute remaining to tie the score at 115.
Baylor Scheierman had a tough night
Scheierman has had better evenings — he went 1-for-11 with seven points and a pair of turnovers, shooting just 1-for-6 from deep. In the Celtics’ opener against the Cavaliers, he was excellent in a high-usage role, but Friday’s contest was significantly less attractive (although he did dish out five assists).
Gabe McGlothan played an inspired game
McGlothan is almost certainly headed back to the G-League (or somewhere overseas), but the 27-year-old forward finished Friday’s preseason finale with a staggering 13 rebounds, five of which were offensive, which directly resulted in seven points for the Celtics.
McGlothan was just 2-for-7 from the field — all 3-point attempts — but the seven second-chance points generated by his hustle in a game that ended regulation tied were clearly a winning factor, and one has to imagine that he left a great impression on the Celtics on his way out the door.
Dillon Mitchell hit a huge 3-pointer
With 3:10 left in overtime, the Celtics took the lead when (who else?) McGlothan picked Labaron Philon’s pocket as he tried to drive by, and McGlothan then launched a pass ahead to rookie Dillon Mitchell, who slammed it down.
Neither team scored for more than a minute and a half, which meant that at 1:33 when Mitchell navigated around a screen from Harper, every possession was starting to feel like a win-or-lose moment.
At the time, there were 17 seconds left on the shot clock, which meant that Mitchell didn’t need to shoot. However, he confidently stepped into the shot and pulled a smooth-looking triple from above the break, which he canned to give the Celtics a five-point lead that — considering the dearth of offensive talent on the floor for the Sixers at the time — was insurmountable.
Mitchell has shown his freak athletic powers several times during the preseason, but he took just 15 3-pointers last year and made just one of them.
That Mitchell has the confidence to shoot that shot in that situation is a promising sign.
Jaylen Brown played against the Celtics
The Celtics got their first look at Jaylen Brown in a Sixers uniform, and it looked … essentially how one would expect. Brown finished with 20 points, eight rebounds and three assists, and he hit some tough shots.
Afterward, Brown greeted the teammates present warmly, although — as Harper revealed — he did inform them all that they are “still ugly.”
“That just means he misses us,” Harper told NBC Sports Boston with a big smile.
Whether the good feelings will continue to the first meeting between Brown and the Celtics in the regular season remains to be seen.
What’s next
What’s next? The regular season, at last! The Celtics open the NBA’s regular-season slate with a bizarre 3 p.m. tipoff on Tuesday against the Pistons before hosting the Knicks in their TD Garden opener on Friday.
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