Final: Celtics 112, Hornets 103 - C's reserves come back against Hornets first unit

The Celtics are in Greensboro, North Carolina tonight for a special exhibition against the G League’s Charlotte Hornets. 

Oh … sorry … I’m being told they are an actual NBA franchise and it’s just that they’ve LOOKED like a G League team this preseason. BostonSportsJournal.com regrets the error. 

The Celtics look like they're going to cut the Hornets some slack tonight and rest most of their regulars. Joe Mazzulla has said he’s looking to get guys some extra rest. 

“We'll probably give them a night off at some point, but definitely want to ramp them up also,” he said at practice earlier this week. “We don’t want to go into a regular season game without them seeing what their strengths are and how we want to play.”

I’d say ‘night off’ and ‘ramp them up’ screams night off tonight and building them up to regular season minutes with the final preseason game a week from tonight and the season opener the following Wednesday.

So what does that mean? 

In a sense, it’s a chance to see some of the fringe guys and role players play. However, it’s tough to evaluate them in this situation versus getting run with the regulars. The spacing will just be different for them tonight. 

But there's always something to pull, so I’ll be watching Grant Williams in particular to see what he does with a bit more freedom. Maybe he’ll bust out a move or two that we haven't seen yet. Sam Hauser will be an interesting watch because he’s generally less effective off the dribble, but we can see if he’s improving in that area. 

Blake Griffin will get some run tonight. It might only be 15 minutes, but we’ll get a chance to see what he looks like. 

We’ll be in for a few surprises, I’m sure, so follow along with me here if you’d like. Jump in the comments and chime in … or more likely respond to them tomorrow because there are better things to watch tonight. Either way, I’ll be here.