The Celtics, who were without two major players, were helped by Derrick White (who scored 27 points) and Al Horford (who played outstanding defence against Joel Embiid and contributed 14 points, nine rebounds, and five blocks). ESPN’s Tim Bontemps writes.
As Bontemps points out, the addition of Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis in the offseason has caused White and Horford to fall in the Celtics’ hierarchy this year. But White and Horford served as a reminder of their value to the team in the Sixers game when Porzingis and Jaylen Brown were out.
Jayson Tatum stated, “That’s the luxury that we have on our team.” “We have a tonne of talented guys here.”
Especially for Horford, it was a significant night. For the first time in his career, Horford has been required to regularly come off the bench, yet White has remained the Celtics’ permanent starter despite the summer roster changes. He has only appeared as a reserve in 10 of the 1,013 regular season games before to this one. This autumn, he’s only started three out of ten games.
According to Gary Washburn of The Boston Globe, Horford stated,
“We were down a couple of guys so having to step up and create a spark plug was important for me to do.” Generally speaking, I believe that’s what I do when I have to guard in the
Forward OG Anunoby is classified as doubtful, but Gary Trent Jr. (foot) is anticipated to play for the Raptors on Friday after missing the team’s last three games. Anunoby, who has missed the last two games due to a lacerated right index finger, is still limited to using his left hand to shoot and dribble, according to a tweet from Josh Lewenberg of TSN.
Given that Jakob Poeltl is a good NBA starting centre, Eric Koreen of The Athletic doesn’t think the Raptors made a mistake when they traded away a top-six protected first-round selection for him and then signed him to a four-year, $78 million contract. But according to Koreen, Poeltl hasn’t exactly blended in well with Toronto’s other frontcourt players.
According to Andrew Marchand of The New York Post, Mark Jackson was supposed to call a few Knicks games for MSG Network this season. However, it doesn’t appear like that will happen. According to Marchand, one reason Knicks management opposed to Jackson flying on the club jet was because of a previous “quarrel” involving former Warriors head coach Steve Wilkins and current Knicks assistant Darren Erman. Erman worked under Jackson while he was in Golden State and secretly taped meetings.
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