I thought he was very good, and I thought he made some winning plays throughout the entire game. And that's the role. That's what you have to become as a guy that can guard anybody on any given night, and he's embracing that.
Payton Pritchard hit five 3-pointers, scored 24 points and had nine assists and the Boston Celtics used a big second half to run past the Memphis Grizzlies 131-95 on Wednesday night. The Grizzlies played without Ja Morant, the star guard who sat out because of a right ankle injury sustained Tuesday night in a loss at New York. Derrick White added 20 points for the Celtics, and Jaylen Brown had 19.
Boston drafted Scheierman with the 30th overall pick in 2024 out of Creighton, where he averaged 18.5 points per game as a senior on his way to being named a third-team All-American. But Scheierman has only played a small role for the Celtics so far, averaging 8.5 minutes per game and scoring just three points this season. However, he has shown potential for how he can impact this team for the better with his passing and hustle in Summer League.
The Celtics have a brutally difficult start to the season, especially for a team with so much change, and they were in real danger of digging themselves a nasty hole after they lost a winnable game against the 76ers in the opener. Losing to the Knicks and Pistons weren't problematic results in a vacuum, but with two three-games-in-four-nights stretches and contests against championship contenders on the horizon, the Celtics had a chance to go winless or 1-6 in their first seven games.
The Knicks were expected to be better than the Celtics, and they are. The Celtics lost a lot of stellar defensive players, most notably Jrue Holiday, and they paid the price against Jalen Brunson, whose 31 points and five assists looked a little easier than they did last year during the regular season. Karl-Anthony Towns, meanwhile, feasted against a Celtics team that looks clumsy at times defensively and downright abysmal on the defensive glass.
For a while, Dick was the first action on every play down. They were playing out of delay, and waiting for Dick to jostle loose of his player and into a handoff to kick things off. It worked out alright, as his aggression helped create some looks (and some free throws that he uncharacteristically split 2-4) but by the end of the 8 minute stretch he was dog tired.
Wednesday's game provided us with our first look at a new era of Celtics basketball, and in a very encouraging turn of events, their first game sans Jayson Tatum (temporarily) as well as Jrue Holiday, Al Horford, Kristaps Porzingis, and Luke Kornet (permanently), the Celtics offered fans some much needed catharsis. The last time we saw the Celtics, they were run off the floor in
The Boston Celtics significantly altered their roster this offseason - shedding a hefty amount of payroll by trading away two lineup regulars in Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis. Boston also wasn't able to retain other key players in free agency, as Al Horford and Luke Kornet signed with the Warriors and Spurs, respectively, out on the open market. The writing was on the wall that
