NEW ORLEANS — With 5:31 to go in the second quarter on Monday night, Saddiq Bey drove into Payton Pritchard and kicked the ball out to Jordan Poole. But Josh Minott intercepted the pass. It was merely the latest in a string of impact plays Minott made in his first career NBA start.
He snagged Bey’s pass mid-air and sprinted down the floor into open space. Poole and Jeremiah Fears chased after him until the opposite three-point line, where they gave up. From there, Minott soared through the air for a monster dunk, his second of a three-dunk evening vs. the New Orleans Pelicans.
But he overcooked the dunk.
Minott threw down a two-handed slam, but as momentum carried him forward, he slipped off the rim. He went flailing down to the ground, crashing into the hardwood.
Josh Minott's fall helped display new Celtics identity
In a split second, the Boston Celtics bench flipped from hyped to concerned. Assistant coach Tony Dobbins began to get out of his seat to check on Minott. Hugo Gonzalez went from screaming to putting his hands on his head with his mouth still agape.
It was the type of fall that can lead to a wide range of injuries. A game-stopping incident, in some cases.
Minott popped right back up and ran back down the floor to play defense.
“Alive and kicking,” Minott said after the game.
He just wanted to make sure the ball went in.
“I cocked it back, and then I was thinking about just flushing it,” Minott said. “Just a little clean flush. But then I'm like, game like this, it's a must-win, so I'm like, I didn't wanna brick the dunk. So, I'm like, I'm gonna just make sure the ball goes through the rim.
“Like in life, I just held on too long. Sometimes you just gotta let go in life. But nah, it didn't hurt, though.”
The ball went in, Minott went down, but he didn’t stay down.
There was no hesitation. No moment to collect himself. No wince of pain as he was running back. Minott got up, nearly forced another turnover, then boxed out DeAndre Jordan on the defensive glass to help Boston secure a board after a missed Bey three-point attempt.
It was an impressive display of resilience, but in that moment, he had no other option.
“He doesn't have a choice,” Joe Mazzulla said with a straight face. “You get hurt, you're not playing ever again.”
Injuries aren’t acceptable.
That’s obviously inherently harsh. Legitimate issues, like Jayson Tatum’s Achilles, Jaylen Brown’s hamstring, or Luka Garza’s concussion, will be met with proper care. But even then, these Celtics are built on toughness.
When Garza took a shot to the head in the season opener, the play that put him in concussion protocol, Mazzulla ran over to him, screaming at him to get up. When Tatum went down in the Orlando Magic series with a wrist injury, Mazzulla yelled the same message at him across the court: ‘Get up!’
There was no yelling with Minott. He knew what he had to do.
“He had the right attitude,” said Mazzulla. “He got up, and he almost got a deflection, I think. And again, it hasn't gone the way we anticipated it, but I think we've gotten better physically, but gotten better mentally, [too], and those plays show that.”
It was only one play. And it could have gone much worse for Minott. But his reaction to the issue perfectly embodied what Mazzulla wants these Celtics to be.
“You just have to stay hungry, you have to keep playing,” said Mazzulla. “Gotta keep chipping away at the identity that we need to create. I think Josh has bought into that. I think all of our guys have. We just gotta keep it up.”