Williams set to return
Knee injury likely to keep Walker out for fifth straight game
Just in time to go against a team that’s committed to smallball, the Celtics are getting one of their big men back. Robert Williams, out with a hip injury since the first week of December, will be available against the Rockets tonight. But one of the smaller Celts, All-Star point guard Kemba Walker, appears set to miss his fifth straight game with left knee maintenance.
“Rob has been cleared to play, so it’ll be very limited for the first couple games, but that’s great news obviously,” said Brad Stevens after Friday’s practice. “We’re excited, nobody more so than Rob. I wasn’t with him yesterday when he went and got (his latest scan), but when I got the report, that was obviously the case. And then he had a little extra bounce in his step today. You can tell he’s been antsy to go for a while now, so we’re happy that he’s going to be able to be back.”
And he might be able to be of assistance against James Harden, Russell Westbrook and the Rockets, who, beginning with a 116-105 victory over the Celts on Feb. 11, have won their last five.
“I mean, Rob’s a pretty mobile guy,” said Stevens. “He can move with guards and wings, so he may get some minutes tomorrow. We’ll see how it goes.”
Walker is in a more uncertain place. While his injury isn’t overly concerning, the focus has clearly become choosing a plan that gives him the best chance to stay available without much interruption the rest of the way. If he misses this one, that gives him another few days without a game.
“He went through some of the stuff prior to practice today, (but) did not practice,” Stevens said. “Unlikely to (go) for tomorrow, and I think the plan of attack is for him to go harder in the morning, maybe even ramp it up Sunday and then go from there. So hopefully back by Tuesday (vs. Brooklyn). But out for tomorrow is what I’ve heard last.”
And Walker can expect a lighter load at first when he does return.
“I think that’s usually the case when you miss extended periods like this, especially with lower body,” said the coach. “So I’m guessing that there’ll be some minutes restriction. But as we said earlier, the goal is to have him feeling great — not just be ready, but feeling great, so when he gets back, you’re not doing the back and forth as much of sitting a few. Now, if he were to come back next week, I don’t anticipate him playing on the back-to-back (Celts play Wednesday in Cleveland). But I do think that once he gets back on the court, it’s because he feels great.”
The Celtics didn’t feel all that great on their recent visit to Houston. Harden hit them up for 42 points, Westbrook added 36, and the Rockets looked good after trading away center Clint Capela and going with a smaller group overall.
But Stevens thinks that latter designation is a bit off.
“I kind of get a kick out of the small-ball category,” he said. “Like I said before, we played them in Houston, just a bunch of linebackers. Tough, strong, physical, you can’t post them, excellent in doing what they do best, hard to play against. And the only position they’re small in is at center. They’re huge at the point and have a physical advantage at a lot of positions.”
That previous matchup is also known as the last game Jayson Tatum was mortal. He made just five of his 15 shots and had 15 points, a rather stark contrast to the 27.2 points on 57.5% shooting he’s averaged in the five games since.
But stopping the Rockets will be a different story.
“It IS a tough task,” said Gordon Hayward. “They obviously play a little different than just about everybody in the NBA, and with the guys that they have offensively, they make you really have to be disciplined on both ends.
“I think it’s different than most of the other NBA teams, but it still is somewhat similar when they still had a big in there, because they like to play five-out a lot and it ended up being the same type of situation. So, I mean, it’s going to be on all of us to try to stop them defensively and make sure that we take care of the ball on offense and get good shots.”
And preparation can only go so far.
“It’s hard to reproduce what Harden and Russell Westbrook can do in practice,” said Hayward. “Certainly when you’re out there it’s obviously a little different. You’ve got to try to make them shoot tough shots and try to not let them get easy looks and try to keep them off the line.”
And that starts with the Celtics playing a smart game. Hayward said the focus is always on what his team does, and Stevens noted that there is much to accomplish between now and the start of the playoffs.
“We have to get way better,” he said. “We have to get way better. We found ways to win some games and we’ve done a good job of playing together and being together and staying together, but as far as… we just have to get better, you know. And the encouraging part is that we’ve shown signs of that. I thought we saw some things in the Lakers game that we hadn’t seen a ton of. We saw it again in the Utah game and we handled it well. So that’s a good sign of growth. But we’ve got a long way to go to be where you want to be.”