While Nikola Vučević labored through another slow start to a game, posting two points in Madison Square Garden through his first 10 minutes, he ended his stints by taking a seat next to fellow center Luka Garza. Garza smiled and chatted with his new teammate during one moment despite receiving 0 minutes for the third straight game.
Vučević emerged from halftime with eight points on 3-for-4 shooting before shooting 5-for-7 over the Pelicans, scoring 14 points to cap an up-and-down four game return from a broken ring finger that forced him to miss one month shortly once he arrived in Boston in February. Garza sat more often before and after Vučević’s injury, awaiting his turn and trying not to let inevitable disappointment he felt leak into the locker room.
Joe Mazzulla re-inserted Garza into a three-man center rotation against New Orleans where he poured in a pair of and-ones, then Vučević watched on the final day of the regular season as Garza capped a 27-point double double with a game-winning spot up three.
Through it all — they became friends.
“When he was still in college, I used to watch him a lot,” Vučević told CLNS Media last week. “Really good player, so when he came to the league, obviously, with his mom being originally from Bosnia, we had that connection from the Balkans, but both of us being big men, having a lot of similarities in our games, just usual talk about basketball, how he sees things, how I see things when I would play. He’d see things and give me things he would see, or if I was hurt and he was playing, I’d try to help him out and just good conversation, great guy. I think we connected really well, we actually sit together on the plane as well. So just a guy I felt like I knew before I got here just from playing years before against him, connected pretty well and it’s good to have a guy that sees a lot of the stuff on the court the same way you do and it’s good to have a set of eyes to help you with the little things.”
Garza’s shot that beat the Magic began a two-for-one situation in a tie game where Boston simply hoped to get the last shot. Often, those rushed attempts look bad and in Garza’s case, his catch off the in-bounds left him facing-up on the wing with Wendell Carter Jr. fast approaching. He hesitated for a moment, then pulled-up and stormed to the sideline flexing and shouting before he entered the timeout huddle.
His first season in an NBA rotation ended by providing 17.9 points, 9.0 rebounds and 2.1 assists per 36 minutes. After long attempting to develop a consistent three-point shot, he finished the year converting 43.3% of his 127 attempts. One opponent late this season considered him a capable pick-and-pop threat, one who needed to be guarded in those situations. And the revelation gave Mazzulla a difficult decision to begin the postseason next weekend.
“It was obviously my first real opportunity to show I can be a rotation guy in this league,” Garza told CLNS after the game. “I think I’ve shown that I’m a guy that can play every single night, and I’m a guy that’s gonna be ready when the opportunity comes. I feel like that’s what I’ve been able to show. I feel like there are parts of my game that people didn’t really know, like my three-point shooting. I think people didn’t really know, saw I had potential in it, but I’ve known for a long time how much work I put in, I believed in myself and I think I’ve shown that I can be a guy that can knock it down. Obviously, offensive rebounding and screening have become my identity. That’s the biggest thing. I feel like I’ve found an identity in this league.”
Mazzulla saw Vučević improving nightly to close the season. Vučević didn’t face an easy transition, Mazzulla stressed, joining a complicated, ever-changing defensive system before suffering an injury early in Jayson Tatum’s season debut against Dallas when. He underwent surgery and worked through Boston’s sets using only his left hand. He also recounted watching film of Neemias Queta and Garza to pick up their tendencies.
Vučević’s struggles mounted to 3-for-15 shooting against Toronto and Charlotte, but Mazzulla stressed he’s too good and has been around too long to not figure things out. The former All-Stars former abilities flashed through heady passes out of post-up positions, clearing out defenders on the glass and knocking down his first three attempts from deep in the Pelicans game. It also showed in the small sample of his 16 games with Boston where he posted 16.5 points, 11.3 rebounds and 3.4 assists per 36 minutes while shooting 43.9% from the field and 34% from three.
He feels like the best bet to back-up Queta in round one. The Celtics outscored opponents by 11.7 points per 100 possessions with Vučević as the lone center. Garza, by comparison, posted a +4.99 net rating.
Mazzulla tried to keep all three in the mix initially following the trade, starting Garza next to Queta in choppy minutes that still amounted to a +2.3 net rating. The Celtics acquired Vučević to give themselves options. And should foul trouble strike for Queta, Boston could need both in a playoff setting. Mazzulla repeated that the team believed in utilizing its entire roster during the playoffs. And Garza, again, knows his minutes could return.
“(Vučević) been great to me as soon as I got in this league,” Garza said. “Obviously, we’re both Balkan, from the same area my family is, being Bosnian, and him obviously being from Montenegro. So he’s always been a guy that’s supported me from afar, not as teammates, and now as teammates, he’s a guy that I want to learn from. That’s someone who I’ve always looked up to, his game, just seeing some similarities there and I think we’re both professionals at the end of the day. We care about winning. That’s what’s most important and that’s not going to come between his and I’s relationship.”
