The long and grueling offseason has finally come to an end folks, as the Boston Celtics have seen their first preseason action of the year and, in turn, are the owners of a winning record for the first time since late May.
Despite the fact that their exhibition has zero impact on how they’ll wind up performing during the regular season, it was a welcoming sight to see many of the team’s players gel and showcase the skill sets that they worked on all throughout the summer.
Through four quarters of play, the Cs managed to scrape past the Orlando Magic by a final score of 98-97.
During the outing, we saw a rather deep rotation deployed by first-year head coach, Ime Udoka, as 13 players wound up seeing time spent on the hardwood, 10 of which saw 14-plus minutes.
Though this deep rotation obviously won’t continue on into the regular season, for a team generally finds itself rolling out nine or ten players a night that receive consistent playing time, Monday’s outing gave the fans and, more importantly, the coaching staff a better look at what the shamrocks have in regard to overall talent and, with this, it gives Udoka a more developed sense of who he’ll ultimately use within his lineups.
Of the bunch, there were plenty of guys who showed out during their time on the hardwood, with some even outperforming initial expectations.
On the flip side, unfortunately, there were also a few players who dropped the ball in Boston’s preseason debut.
Today, we pinpoint one stud and one dud from Monday’s win over the Magic: