Boston Celtics: Robert Williams III sighted at Cs practice

The Boston Celtics suffered their first loss of the 2022-23 season this past Monday, ending up on the wrong side of a 120-102 result in a matchup with the Chicago Bulls in which the Cs had a 19-point lead at one point.

Boston was battered on the boards, losing the rebounding battle 60-45 and giving up 23 rebounds to Nikola Vucevic alone — 10 of which were offensive rebounds. The loss revealed a potentially damning problem for the Cs.

In the wake of such a letdown, there is good news: Robert Williams III was spotted at Boston Celtics practice on October 26, two days ahead of their next game against the Cleveland Cavaliers at the T.D. Garden.

Here was Boston Sports Journal reporter John Karalis’ footage of ‘The Timelord’ present at Cs practice on Wednesday morning in uniform:

The Boston Celtics cannot rush Robert Williams back too early

Just to be clear here, Robert Williams’ return to practice doesn’t indicate an imminent return. In fact, it’d be in Boston Celtics interim head coach Joe Mazzulla’s best interest not to allow Williams to return to quickly given his injury history.

Williams is a key facet of a potential championship roster, and bringing him back for early regular season games runs the risk of losing him for an extended period of time when the games mean exponentially more.

In his absence, Al Horford is picking up a lion’s share of the minutes, and at age 36, he too can be run into the ground with poor load management. Noah Vonleh has shown the ability to provide quality minutes in spurts, and the Cs have the ability to go small with Jayson Tatum and Grant Williams at the 5 to fill the gaps.

Williams being at practice is exciting, but hopefully it isn’t indicative of a far earlier return timetable for the ‘Time Lord.’