SALT LAKE CITY – The Boston Celtics didn’t win as many games as they would have liked in the Utah Jazz Summer League.
Whether it was their young players getting better acclimated to the pro game or the altitude, Boston closed out their time in Salt Lake City on a positive note with an 85-71 win over San Antonio.
There was timely shot-making from starters as well as reserves.
Boston lost the rebounding war once again, but only by four (38-34) which is a significant improvement compared to the first two games when the Celtics were out-rebounded by 20 in each game.
“Just playing well on both ends is the most important thing,” said Celtics head coach Brad Stevens in discussing Boston's summer league team's play on Thursday. “All of our guys added to it.”
Now they move on to play in the Las Vegas Summer League Tournament beginning this weekend with one of the goals being to ride the success of Thursday’s victory.
“That’s what me and JY (James Young) were just talking about in the locker room. We needed some momentum. We were calling ourselves the Trash Brothers instead of Splash brothers (nickname for Golden State’s backcourt of league MVP Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson),” said Boston’s R.J. Hunter. “We needed that (win on Thursday) for sure.”
Here are some of the Stars, Studs and Duds from Boston's victory on Thursday.
STARS
Marcus Smart, Boston
Smart had another big night scoring the ball, but his play on Thursday had a far greater impact than what he did in Monday’s loss. Not only was Smart scoring again (he had a game-high 22 points on Thursday), but he was also getting his teammates involved (seven assists) along with being a bigger pest than usual on the defensive end. It was the kind of performance both he and the Celtics needed as they continue their summer league play in the Las Vegas Summer League this weekend.
STUDS
R.J. Hunter, Boston
After going scoreless in his first two summer league games, Hunter found his stride on Thursday night and scored 18 points which included a perfect 4-for-4 shooting performance from 3-point range.
The Celtics were one of the worst shooting teams in the NBA last season and made adding scorers like Hunter, the 28th overall pick in last month’s NBA draft, a priority this offseason.
Boston Celtics
His defense remains a work in progress, but he’s doing enough to at least give himself a shot at seeing court time which would provide him ample opportunities to shoot like he did on Thursday.
DUDS
James Young
It wasn’t the fact that he scored just one point in nine minutes of action. Young suffered a hip injury which kept him out for most of Thursday’s game. There’s still plenty of time for him to recover and return to action this summer, but if the injury is serious it means Young’s summer league play is over after just two-plus games. And that comes on the heels of a previous injury that kept him out for all of summer league last season.
Summer league means little to teams and everything to players trying to prove themselves. And while Young was a first-round pick who is still extremely young (he’s only 20 years old and will likely be the youngest member of the Celtics roster for the second year in a row), at some point he has to stay healthy enough and play consistently – two things he has yet to do at the same time for any lengthy stretch thus far in his career.