The Celtics came back to beat the Charlotte Hornets in their third summer league game, out-scoring them 33-24 in the fourth quarter to win 89-84. They were led by 15 each from Anton Watson and Jahmi'us Ramsey and got 12 from Baylor Scheierman and 11 from Killian Tillie. Scheierman led Boston with six rebounds and Ramsey was the high assist man with five.
If you missed the game, consider yourself lucky. It was a basketball game in the most technical of senses. Two teams wearing different colors participated in a sanctioned, timed, officiated event during which the traditional rules of NBA basketball were followed. Aside from that, very little that transpired was anything near what we know basketball to be.
To put it a little more succinctly, I spent more time laughing out loud than I did taking notes.
That's not to say the game didn’t have its moments. Jaelen House talking trash and coming alive a little in the fourth quarter was fun, though it doesn’t mean anything for the Celtics. He might get a camp invite, but he’s probably G League-bound at best. Ramsey, Tyler Cook, and Ron Harper Jr. won’t stick around either, though they had some moments and Harper did get a camp deal.
And finishing the game on a run to win isn’t meaningless. Any time the score is kept with a bunch of competitive people, there is a desire to win. The players and coaches want to prove they can contribute to winning, so finishing on top is nice.
Jaden Springer, Neemias Queta, and Drew Peterson all sat this game out, so there weren’t as many relevant Celtics performances. Here are a few thoughts on the few there were.
Anton Watson: He’s the story of the game. He had a nice statistical impact with 15 points, five rebounds, two assists, two steals, a block, no turnovers and only one foul. That's a pretty good game. He was aggressive with his 3-point shot, something Brad Stevens asked for when he said “I want him to come in here with the mindset he's gonna let it fly like he's never let it fly before because I think he's a better shooter than he sometimes thinks he is.”
He finished 3-9 on 3-pointers, but I’m not too worried about the misses because a few of those were either just long or just short. I don’t care about misses that are on target but just a little off on the power. I worry when the misses are erratic and off either side of the rim. That screams mechanical issues. Missing short or long tells me the form is fine and it is just a matter of dialing in the power.
On top of that, he made some late hustle plays to seal the win by tracking down offensive rebounds and coming up with a huge blocked shot.
Watson has been the most consistent and sound player of the summer. It’s nice that he had a big statistical game to highlight that. I think he has a good foundation of skills that could translate to some success at the next level. I feel like he can be a contributor some day.
Baylor Scheierman: Another tough shooting night, going 1-8 from deep. That one was a clutch bucket though, so that was good to see. He did do other little things, like grab those six rebounds and dish a couple of assists, but overall this was his worst of the three summer games.
He shot a couple of early 3-pointers under duress on the move, and I wonder if he was trying to take tougher ones to prove some kind of point to himself or his coaches. Or maybe they were just bad shots. He didn’t lose any confidence, that's for sure. I’ll take that as a positive for now.
JD Davison: I was not impressed with Davison in this one. He had a few moments, but he still plays too out of control for me. I think he’s trying to do too much. The Celtics had nice things to say about him before the summer, and he has shown some flashes, especially with what might be an improved 3-point shot. But there are negatives to his game that I just can’t shake.
The setting doesn’t do him any favors, though. I’ll give him some leeway because he’s not playing with a cohesive group that's trying to play for one another. And because he has the ball all the time and wants to make plays, he ends up just trying to do things himself.
This was a nice cut, though.
JD got some bounce 😤 pic.twitter.com/dwkrKw78fG
— Boston Celtics (@celtics) July 17, 2024
Jordan Walsh: He is having a tough summer. He was 0-5 in this game, 0-1 from 3. He missed two of four from the line, turned it over a couple of times, and nearly had a few more through the game. He’s playing out of control.
There's no way to sugarcoat this summer league for Walsh. It has been bad. Every time I thought he might bounce back, he instead went in the other direction. He’s pressing in a big way and he needs to find some zen before leaving Vegas. Maybe he needs an overnight ayahuasca journey in the desert to reset his mind. Whatever he needs to do, he should do it now.
Next up: The Celtics play the Mavs at 4:30 p.m. on Friday. They are probably out of the running for a championship, so after that, they’ll have one more game over the weekend.