Ojeleye helps to nix Knicks’ Knox
CELTICS NOTEBOOK
LAS VEGAS — Considering he scored 29 points in his previous game, Knicks rookie Kevin Knox was considered an interesting gauge for Semi Ojeleye in yesterday’s summer league playoff game.
Let’s just say Knox had to work a lot harder for his numbers in the Celtics’ 8275 win. The young forward, guarded the most by Ojeleye as part of the Celtics’ ever-switching defensive rotation, finished the game with 15 points on 5-for-20 shooting.
Ojeleye has been told by Brad Stevens and his assistants that the next step in his defensive development is not just keeping the ball in front of him, but also getting into his opponent’s air space. Judging from the weary way Knox finally left the floor, Ojeleye had done his job, even drawing a charge on Knox down the stretch.
“He’s doing so many other things and he did a very good job on Kevin Knox,” said C’s summer league coach Jay Larranaga. “He’s always in a great help position and I think he’s continuing to progress every game.”
It’s not as if Ojeleye went into summer league in need of major improvement defensively — not after guarding Giannis Antetokounmpo and LeBron James in the playoffs, the former with particular effectiveness.
“It’s just mental. It’s just realizing that you can have that impact,” he said. “You see all these great players, these great scorers, sometimes you kind of want to play conservatively, but he’s trying to get on me to go out and attack. It’s a different mindset, but it’s something I can do.”
Knox was certainly an interesting player to bring this new approach against.
“He’s a good player. It wasn’t just me. Jabari (Bird) was on him,” said Ojeleye. “We were switching on him. So, it was a good job.
“You always wanna play against the best,” he added. “He’s been playing well, and I knew if we were gonna win, we’d have to make it tough on him. So I took the challenge. He missed a couple shots. Like I said, the whole team did a good job on him.
“(But) he has great potential. He’ll have a great career. It’s just the beginning for him.”
Williams improving
Though he hasn’t played since the opening night of summer league on July 6, the Celtics aren’t ready to rule out Robert Williams for the rest of the tournament, with the next game scheduled for tomorrow.
“He’s one day closer than the last time we gave an update,” said Larranaga. “He’s improving every day. I don’t know what percentage we have him at now, but he seems in good spirits. One thing we know about our medical staff is if he sticks to the program, he will eventually get better.”
Union haul
Jaylen Brown, team player representative, came out of this week’s Players Association meeting with a lot of ideas about the direction of the league.
“It was fantastic, We talked about a lot of important things, a lot of discussion,” he said. “We talked about the one-and-done situation. We talked about BRI (basketball-related income), we talked about a lot of stuff. The PA, the union, the NBA is moving in a great direction, from where it’s come from to where it is now. It’s night and day, so we just want to keep it moving in the right direction. So that’s what the meetings we talked about. I talked to CP3 (Chris Paul) a lot, about the history and some of the stories he’s had throughout the years he’s been player/president, and it was enlightening for me hearing those different stories. It makes you wish you were there to hear them yourself.”
The biggest item of the summer is the NBA’s likely abolishment of the one-and-done rule, paving the way for athletes to once again join the league straight out of high school.
“It’s interesting, what’s the opposition to it, right? That so now, the NBA is making it so you can come out of high school,” said Brown. “I think if you can serve in the military at 18, you should be able to play in the NBA. That would be my argument.”
Asked if he would have made the jump from high school if it was allowed, Brown said, “I don’t know, I would have to re-evaluate. I had no type of expectancy of what I was doing, I was just trying to make the best decision for myself.”