The Boston Celtics should be ready to go when they roll into this season with Neemias Queta and Mitchell Robinson as their two centers. However, as exciting as this development, it's overshadowed the fact that Boston still has Luka Garza waiting in the wings whenever they need him to.
We all know about how awesome he was last season, but as the starter in their very first preseason game, he sent a good reminder of just how useful he is in a scheme like Mazzulla Ball. The three wasn't falling - going one for five from distance - but in less than nine minutes, Garza had six rebounds, three of which were offensive.
Sure, he had a plus/minus of minus-one in those minutes, but it would have been different if his three-ball - which proved to be legit last season - was falling. Even so, his offensive rebounding presence is probably what helped Bosotn stay in it even when his shots weren't falling.
It's another example of Boston's embarrassment of riches with their frontcourt. One of the concerns coming into the season was that Robinson wasn't going to play back-to-backs. Robinson has openly disputed that notion, but Garza continuing his impressive play begs a good question.
Will it even matter?
Garza might be good enough to trot out double bigs
Garza might be too good to relegate him to a "Stay Ready" role. The only problem isn't just that Boston has two pretty darn good big men ahead of him, but their depth overall as a team is good enough that it might be difficult for him to carve out minutes period.
However, Mazzulla emphasizes depth from every which way because he loves having different options to go to, whether it be individual players or specific lineups, he lvoes exploiting advantages.
Garza is the Celtics' lone stretch big, which has proven useful against some of their best competition in the past, like San Antonio. Regardless, Mazzulla may try double big lineups, especially when going up against teams whose bread and butter are their double-big lineups like Miami (Giannis Antetokounmpo and Bam Adebayo) and Utah (Lauri Markkanen and Jaren Jackson Jr.).
Nights like tonight prove that even if Boston may not depend on Garza as much as they did last season, he still very much deserves playing time for how well he fits what Joe Mazzulla wants him to do.
No matter how they plug him in, Garza continues to prove to Boston why he's absolutely an asset for the winning basketball they want to play.
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