News Celtics Team Notes

[Boston Celtics]

Celtics won’t rule out Jayson Tatum playing next season — but he won’t be rushing back

Photo by Elsa/Getty Images

Brad Stevens said the Celtics aren’t discussing a timeline for Tatum’s return — but didn’t entirely rule him out for the 2025-26 season.

The Indiana Pacers have formally ruled out Tyrese Haliburton playing next season as he recovers from an Achilles rupture he suffered last month. But Celtics general manager Brad Stevens declined to make a similar declaration regarding Jayson Tatum, who ruptured his Achilles tendon six weeks before Haliburton did.

“We’re not even talking about timeline for return,” Stevens said matter-of-factly on Tuesday. “We’re not even going there.”

From the jump, Stevens has made clear that the organization would prioritize Tatum’s long-term health and not put any pressure on him with an expected timeline. Stevens said that the six-time All-Star has been in the building daily, focused on his rehab.

The public got a glimpse of that last week, when Tatum posted a video of himself walking in a pool alongside his trainer and close friend, Nick Sang.

Jayson Tatum posted a video of himself walking in a pool today on Instagram as he continues his Achilles rupture rehab pic.twitter.com/Q7hQxW4tV9

— Noa Dalzell (@NoaDalzell) July 6, 2025​

“Jayson is working every single day,” Stevens said. “He has literally been here every day except for a few day break. But when he takes a few days break, Nick goes with him, so he’s still working every single day.”

Jaylen Brown has also regularly been at the Auerbach Center ​

Jaylen Brown, who had knee surgery to repair a partially torn meniscus last month, has also been focused on his rehab daily. Brown is expected to be ready to go before training camp begins in October.

“We have no reason to believe Jaylen won’t be all clear and ready to go fairly shortly,” Stevens said.

Stevens noted it’s unusual for the Celtics' stars to be around the facility at this point in the offseason, and shared that Brown was in for a shooting workout early Tuesday morning and that Tatum seems to be progressing well.

“Jayson was in moving pretty fast on that boot today, so all indications are they’re both progressing at incredible rates, which is great,” Stevens said. “But we’re not gonna put any pressure on Jayson to get back anytime soon.”

Meanwhile, rookie Hugo Gonzalez said he feels “blessed” to get the chance to be around both veterans as he acclimates to the organization.

Very cool to see that Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown — who are both rehabbing at the Auerbach Center — both met the rookies today

(Photos via Celtics Instagram) pic.twitter.com/PTGGXXAOHV

— Noa Dalzell (@NoaDalzell) July 1, 2025​

“They are really, really good players, one of the best in the league,” Gonzalez said. “Having them near here, learning about them, and everything, is just an opportunity that I’m really blessed to have.”

Source: https://www.celticsblog.com/2025/7/...chilles-injury-recovery-timeline-brad-stevens

 

[Boston Celtics]

It is time for Jordan Walsh to dominate Summer League

Lucas Peltier-Imagn Images

In his third trip to the Strip, Walsh needs to show he has graduated from the summer showcase.

It typically isn’t a great sign that a player is playing in Summer League entering their 3rd NBA season. If they are, they should look like the best player on the court.

Things I look for during Summer League:

Do the rookies look like they can hang athletically? Especially when going against experienced players.
What skills do returning players show off? Are they asked to play a very different role and handling it ok?
Are second- and…

— Keith Smith (@KeithSmithNBA) July 5, 2025

Very simple rule for me.

If Baylor and Walsh don’t dominate, it’s not going to happen for them as nba players. https://t.co/7RzitPZTF9

— Matt (@Mahcus_Smaht) July 8, 2025

In last season’s Celtics Summer League opener, Jaden Springer had 23 points and 6 assists while Neemias Queta had 20 points and 9 rebounds. Springer would not play in Summer League again while Queta had 22 points and 8 rebounds in the Summer C’s next game before being shut down. They dominated, showing that they were above playing in Vegas.

Walsh, on the other hand, played in all five Summer League games the Celtics played in last year. He averaged 9.0 points, 6.6 rebounds and 2.4 assists on 29% from the field and 13% from three.

He didn't look like just a guy — he was plain bad. That simply cannot be the case this year. He needs to stand out. On Friday against the Grizzlies, we need to see Walsh stand out and think he could be a guy who can help the Celtics.

Walsh: “I’m a vet now, which is nice.” pic.twitter.com/oIn3EVouAl

— Bobby Manning (@RealBobManning) July 8, 2025

Walsh’s athleticism has shown flashes at times and his range on defense is something to watch as well. However, he needs to be able to score the ball this time around. He needs to be able to get past a defender and finish around the cup. He needs to be able to knock down catch and shoot threes.

His offensive rebounding is something a lot of people liked coming out of school and he did that pretty well last summer with 1.8 offensive rebounds per game. However, the Celtics need more out of Walsh in the half court other than just crashing the offensive glass.

The Celtics just signed Josh Minott to a 2-year contract, a player who has a very similar archetype to Walsh — long rangy defenders who are athletic, pretty good offensive rebounders but have struggled to make threes at the NBA level. Minott played at Summer League last year, averaging 15.8 points, 6.8 rebounds and 1.4 assists per game on 44% from the field and 23% from three.

Nothing special but better than Walsh looked.

Walsh also talked about putting too much pressure on himself last summer and how it led to his mix bag of results.

“When I went into it last year, I was kind of in the mentality of trying to be like Jayson Tatum, be Jaylen Brown,” Walsh said. “And it’s like, that’s not the same team, that’s not who I am, I’m not those guys. Now I’m going with the mentality of being me, being the best player that I can be, to affect winning in every [part] of the game.”

Jordan Walsh is coming into Summer League with a new mentality:

“When I went into it last year, I was kind of in the mentality of trying to be like Jayson Tatum, be Jaylen Brown. And it’s like, that’s not the same team, that’s not who I am, I’m not those guys. Now I’m going… pic.twitter.com/QkWczPKHFn

— Noa Dalzell (@NoaDalzell) July 8, 2025

Jordan Walsh might not be putting pressure on himself, but the Celtics are. He needs to perform at a high level this time around in Vegas because unlike in his first two seasons, there is a chance that Walsh can carve out a consistent role for himself this upcoming season.

That needs to start with really high-level play over the next week plus at Summer League. He needs to show the Celtics brass that he has graduated by playing at a really high level in the first one or two games.

Source: https://www.celticsblog.com/2025/7/...boston-celtics-arkansas-springer-queta-minott

 

[Boston Celtics]

Who will the Celtics face in next season’s NBA Cup?

Photo by Brian Babineau/NBAE via Getty Images

Boston is competing with four Eastern Conference rivals on the road to the NBA Cup in Vegas.

The groups for the 2025 Emirates NBA Cup were announced today and the Celtics were placed in Group East B alongside the Brooklyn Nets, Detroit Pistons, Orlando Magic, and Philadelphia 76ers.

The #EmiratesNBACup 2025 Group Draw results!

Starting October 31, all 30 teams will compete for the NBA Cup with 8 teams advancing out of groups into the knockout rounds, with the semifinals and championship held in Las Vegas, December 13 and 16! pic.twitter.com/VJur4Hv0lL

— NBA (@NBA) July 9, 2025​

Boston has not found much success when it comes to competing for the NBA Cup in the past couple of years. In the inaugural 2023 In-Season Tournament, the Celtics went 3-1 in the group stages, winning Group C with their only loss coming against the Magic and their wins against the Nets, Raptors, and Bulls.

Who could forget the infamous final game against the Bulls where the Celtics dominated them by a score of 124-97 due to the fact they needed to win by 23+ points to win the point differential battle. Joe Mazzulla intentionally fouled Andre Drummond even though they already had a big lead in the game and it caused a bit of friction between at the time Bulls coach Billy Donovan.

After advancing to the knockout stage as the 3rd seed, the Celtics would face off against the 2nd seed Indiana Pacers where they would fall 122-112 in Indiana. This was first introduction to the Pacers on a national stage and they would ride the momentum all the way to the Finals of the Tournament but lost to the Los Angeles Lakers in the championship game.

The newly named Emirates NBA Cup in 2024 would not change the Celtics luck in this tournament after not qualifying for the Knockout Round after losing to the eventual Group C winners, Atlanta Hawks and missing out on the Wild Card. Boston beat the Bulls, Cavs, and Wizards but didn’t win the group due to a tie breaker with the Hawks.

That meant they needed the Bucks to beat the Pistons by 6+ points which they did AND the Magic to beat the Knicks OR the Knicks beat the Magic by 37+ points to sneak into the Wild Card spot. Sadly New York won 121-106 which meant the Celtics were officially knocked out of the NBA Cup. The Milwaukee Bucks would end up winning the NBA Cup as they beat the Oklahoma City Thunder in the Championship Game.

Photo by Brian Babineau/NBAE via Getty Images

The NBA Cup starts on October 31st and the Celtics will host Brooklyn and Detroit with road games at Orlando and Philadelphia.

Source: https://www.celticsblog.com/2025/7/...roit-pistons-orlando-magic-philadelphia-76ers

 

[Boston Celtics]

It’s time to accept the Niang reality

Kyle Ross-Imagn Images

The prevailing thought after the Kristaps Porzingis trade was that another move was on the way to re-route Georges Niang. But for now, it seems that he’ll be wearing green on Opening Night.

For the last few years, I’ve maintained a small offseason tradition as a Celtics enjoyer. For every trade, signing or draft pick made by Boston, I wait patiently for a Tomasz Kordylewski YouTube notification to drop for the new acquisition’s multi-minute highlight reel.

It doesn’t matter how well-acquainted I am of the player in question, I just get a small rush of enthusiasm out of the habit. When it came to Georges Niang’s 9-minute long compilation, I pushed it aside and waited for a trade.

And waited.

And waited.

Surely, Georges Niang – the trash-talking, round mound of shootaround who was classified as a C-list villain (at best) for the Celtics fanbase – was just an $8 million expiring detour on the way to greater cap flexibility, right?

As it stands now, that does not seem to be the case, with team social media posts welcoming him (and other rumored re-route candidate Anfernee Simons) to the team, followed by a statement and press conference from Brad Stevens that strongly hinted at the current roster being the general expectation for Opening Night.

“Niang has added value to winning to each team he’s been on. He’s a pain to play against, which I very much admire,” said Stevens in his Tuesday press conference.

This has not gone over well with many fans. It’s not hyperbole to say that Georges Niang may be the most disliked Celtics acquisition in years. Entering any of the comment sections of official Celtics social media posts about Niang requires a hazmat suit and a willingness to witness digital chaos.

Understandably, the 2023 seven-game series with Philadelphia plays a role in that, specifically Niang’s knee-grabbing antics on Jaylen Brown, along with an additional (albeit muted) appearance in the Cleveland playoff series in 2024, but it’s also just the type of player Niang is that rubs opponents the wrong way, and that’s largely by his own design as a trash-spewing rotation player.

Photo by Mitchell Leff/Getty Images

Niang lives to get under the skin, and it’s clearly effective, in part because he’s a modestly effective scoring threat and because he exudes a rare self-awareness of the fact that he’s not “The Guy” and he talks like it.

A role player talking trash? Seems like an easy retort for the opposition, yet Niang seems to be cognizant of the fact. Indeed, the Minivan understands which spots he can parallel in and which are best left to compact vehicles.

All this to say, Niang may not be the guy you want, but he’s the guy you have, and if we take a slight step back, there are at least some reasons to hold an optimistic view of the situation.

Niang may be a career negative on the defensive end, only reaching a positive Defensive Box Plus-Minus once in the past five years (with the 2020-21 Utah Jazz, ranked fourth in the league in defensive rating), but he is a respectable offensive contributor that shot 40% from the 3-point line in six of the last seven seasons.

And while Niang is just an average finisher at the rim (with below average burst and on-ball creation), the ways in which he generates shots are conducive to clean offensive structure. Niang spends the bulk of his time as a screen and roll/pop man (96% percentile in Pick & Roll/Pop/Slip frequency per Basketball Index) and as a perimeter shooter. At this stage in his career, he is one of the more efficient catch-and-shoot specialists in the league (40.8% C&S on threes).

He holds gravity as a shooter because he plays well off the gravity of others. There’s value in that. Add in a wing group that already features Sam Hauser and Baylor Scheierman, and the 3-point ideology of recent Celtics teams can still hold true outside of the primary creation of Jaylen Brown, Payton Pritchard and Derrick White.

Full disclosure, I have never considered myself a particularly big fan of Niang, like many Celtics fans, but I’m nothing if not an optimist, or at least someone empathetic to what is likely a very uncomfortable situation for Niang as he joins a fanbase that has collectively welcomed him with arms behind their back and a tomato in hand. This is far from an easy sell for many, but the least we can do is keep an open mind until games are played and evidence is displayed.

Ultimately, Niang is likely a full-season or deadline transaction away from being back in the bad graces of those who never wanted him in green in the first place. But he’s here now, and the focus should be to readjust to the areas he can help the team rather than the ways to get rid of him.

Source: https://www.celticsblog.com/2025/7/...o-accept-georges-niang-reality-boston-celtics

 

[Boston Celtics]

Boston’s rookie class leaves positive first impressions in Summer League opener

Photo by David Dow/NBAE via Getty Images

All three of Boston’s 2025 draft picks got significant run in their first Summer League appearance, impressing in multiple facets of the game on the way to a 92-78 victory over the Grizzlies.

After all three 2025 draft picks played over 20 minutes in their Summer League debuts, Celtics Summer League head coach Matt Reynolds instilled a lot of trust in the trio, who each played a part in a 92-78 win over the Memphis Grizzlies Friday afternoon.

First round pick Hugo González played a team-high 28 minutes, while second round selections Max Shulga and Amari Williams each made 21-minute starting appearances.

Experimenting with a faster pace and high pick-up points on the defensive end, the Celtics brought an electricity to Cox Pavilion in UNLV’s Thomas & Mack Center, starting with a first impression from González that showcased a little bit of everything the young wing has to offer.

“Hugo and the whole team were just pressuring relentlessly the whole game,” Reynolds said. “That was an excellent tone that he and our backcourt set throughout the course of the game.”

Right off the bat, González made his presence felt, crashing the glass on Boston’s opening possession and finishing on a putback while racing back down the floor to jump in front of a baseline cut for an immediate Grizzlies turnover.

González had his struggles finishing around the rim, shooting 1-of-7 on attempts inside the arc, but his confidence from the 3-point line was a promising indicator of a young talent being emboldened to take the open shots available to him, even if the game’s pace was a little unfamiliar to him.

“It was hard to catch up with the pace,” González said. “In Europe, the game is a lot of times a little bit slower and you’re trying to have the possession until the end. Here, if you’ve got a shot, you’ve got to take it so that’s actually making the game really up and down. You’ve got to catch up with that if you want to play so I’m just trying to adapt.

“I’m pretty lucky that I’ve got a staff that is pushing me right now to get better and to perform really good. They’re giving me confidence to shoot whenever I’m open or whenever I think that I am in a good situation, so I think that’s the main thing.”

That encouragement extended to his struggles as well, including an instance where González missed three consecutive free throws late in the opening quarter, prompting Reynolds to yell from the sidelines for the rookie to keep his head up.

Outside of his 12 points, González left his fingerprints all over the game, dishing out five assists, initiating offense through the pick-and-roll, and battling on the defensive end as a screen-navigating, ball-hounding menace that had two blocks, one steal and two deflections.

Fantastic defensive possession from the #Celtics that’s rewarded with an open look from Hugo Gonzalez. pic.twitter.com/ydnk2HRmYu

— Robby Fletcher (@RFletcher_VT) July 11, 2025​

In 21 minutes, Shulga presented a steady hand as one of the team’s few traditional lead guards. Despite Memphis’ intense ball pressure, Shulga was rarely bothered running the point, ending the game with a clean sheet of zero turnovers, three assists and five points. One of those assists came off the efforts of a fantastic defensive sequence where Shulga closed off a driving lane, deflected a pass and passed the ball back and forth with Williams to set up an easy dunk for the Kentucky big man.

Shulga attempted just four shots, but two showcased the craftiness of the VCU product. Midway through the third quarter, Shulga wrapped around a Williams screen, stopped on a dime, and took the bump as he uncorked a deep shot that banked in with the foul. Early in the fourth, he dashed down the floor on a fastbreak, took more contact and flicked up a left-handed finish for another bucket through the whistle.

“I trust him a lot,” Reynolds said of Shulga. “I think he does everything pretty well, he’s very solid, you know what you’re getting with him, and I think he’s only going to improve as the course of Summer League and the rest of his career moves on.”

Williams also did a little bit of everything in his first Celtics appearance, scoring on all three of his shot attempts with 3-of-4 shooting from the line (9 points) and two blocks. Williams, already known as a playmaking hub, served up a beautiful skip pass assist on a Miles Norris 3-pointer late in the first quarter.

This pass from Amari Williams is just stupid lol pic.twitter.com/UByrK5pcym

— NikNBA (@__Kingnik) July 11, 2025​

Williams was challenged down in the paint, mostly facing off against 6-foot-11, 240-pound center Armando Bacot, who finished 7-of-13 from the field for 14 points to go with six rebounds. Bacot was able to muscle his way past Williams on a few occasions, but Williams was able to get one strong post-up on the block against Bacot that he finished with a left-handed turnaround hook shot.

As far as first impressions go, all three draft picks found ways to impact the game, starting things off on a solid note for the Summer League Celtics, who play their second game of the weekend on Sunday against the Knicks.

Source: https://www.celticsblog.com/2025/7/...eague-hugo-gonzalez-amari-williams-max-shulga