The Boston Celtics went to work in Las Vegas, jumping all over the Denver Nuggets with their hot shooting on their way to an easy 107-82 win. Here were some of the high points and low points from the game.
HIGH POINTS
AARON NESMITH
Whew ... he was on a HEATER. After going 1-8 on 3-pointers in his first game, Nesmith dropped 7 of 9 from deep, including his first six in a row (he finished with 33 points).
All of sudden, 8-17 3-point shooting in summer league feels pretty good, doesn’t it?
The impressive thing about Nesmith is that he’s not just focusing on getting shots, he’s been focusing on getting the types of shots he’s going to need to take during the regular season.
“I’m working on a bunch of shots that I saw last season that I wasn’t able to make. So a lot of them are contested shots,” he said after the game. “Coming into the NBA, I’m labeled as a shooter, so a lot of people are going to try to run me off the line. So I’m working on ways to create better looks for myself, find little pockets so I can get the ball off, working on my release time, and shooting over people.”
This is a very important self-awareness from Nesmith, whose most impressive shots might have been a couple of off-the-dribble pull-up jumpers along the baseline, one of which seemed to come from behind the backboard.
Nesmith clearly got the message that the minutes will go to the guys who complement Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown. By working on these particular kinds of shots, he’s trying to give the Celtics what they’re asking for.
PAYTON PRITCHARD
After bombing away from deep in his first game (he took 15 3-pointers), Pritchard settled into a distribution role. His 21 point, 12 assist, 8 rebound game was more the type of game we might see from him during the regular season. He went 4-5 from deep, but he was focused on more than just his shot this time.
“I think he did a great job just knowing what the game needed, and the game needed for him to make the right play for other people,” summer league head coach Joe Mazzulla said. “Every game is going to be different. There’s going to be times to score and times to distribute and manage the game, and one thing we talked about was he’s learned to manage the game, now he has to manage his teammates, and make sure he makes them better on every possession, and I thought he did that today.”
Pritchard is obviously too good for summer league. He’s an NBA rotation player. I don’t know how much more he has to play. I say give him the next game off and give him one more run to cap the week off.
BRUNO FERNANDO
He only played 15 minutes in his first taste of summer league action with the Celtics, but he showed some strength and agility, including an and-1 on a drive from the top of the key.
“He brought great energy as the anchor of our defense,” Mazzulla said. “He had a positive influence on our guys. I thought Denver did a great job of being physical with us in the first quarter. And I thought Bruno was the anchor and making sure we responded with physicality."
He’s certainly not going to supplant any regulars, and now that Enes Kanter is here again, he might not even be long for the team. But he showed some flashes of maybe earning some emergency minutes.
SOME GOOD, SOME BAD
ROMEO LANGFORD
He didn’t neatly fit into either category. Langford was asked to play some point guard, which he doesn't appear comfortable doing. There was some experimentation with that last regular season, and Brad Stevens said at the time that Langford would have to do more of it to become what Boston wanted him to be, but it’s obvious that’s a long way off.
He was clearly better off the ball, showing a better instinct for slashing and cutting backdoor. One of those resulted in a wicked dunk.
Romeo Langford dropped the HAMMER 🔨#NBASummer pic.twitter.com/tBG03cA6P9
— NBA TV (@NBATV) August 10, 2021
Bonus points to Fernando for not only the assist, but the reaction.
I’d like to see more out of Langford. Of course, this isn’t an indictment on him, per se. Jaylen Brown had some so/so summer league performances and he turned out alright.
Still, I’d like to see a Nesmith-style explosion out of Langford somehow, even if it’s for my own edification.
LOW POINT
YAM MADAR
He tantalized with a good performance in his debut, but he was mostly invisible in this game. He did make a couple of nice passes, but then he also got a little too fancy with one to a streaking big who was hoping for an alley oop but got a bullet off his hands that went out of bounds.
Also, Madar’s trademark high-energy defense was exploited by some overzealous reaching.
“He has great ball pressure, he just has to be solid,” Mazzulla said. “It's hard. It's a fine line. When you ask people to pressure the ball, when you ask them to get into the ball and pick the ball up high, there's obviously more space on the floor for the ball handler to attack. So just finding that balance and pressuring the ball, but staying solid and not reaching and keeping his man in front. When he's solid. he's a he's a very good on-ball defender.”
Just like we shouldn’t have overreacted to Madar’s nice first game by declaring he should get a multi-year deal, we shouldn’t overreact to this. There are elements to his game that need work, and there are some, where he’s a natural.
Let’s see how the rest of the week plays out. If Pritchard gets some time off, then Madar might feel better with more opportunity.
