Boston Celtics
“Everybody looked in the mirror and just thought about making themselves better.”
Derrick White Neemias Queta
Neemias Queta and Baylor Scheierman celebrate a Derrick White dunk on March 23 (Amanda Loman/AP).
The Celtics sit at 8-7 following a win over the Nets Tuesday night, the first time they’ve been above .500 this season.
This rise is in great part due to one area that struggled at the start of the year, but has been steadily improving as time goes on: rebounding.
After losing significant big men this offseason such as Kristaps Porzingis, Al Horford, and Luke Kornet, the Celtics knew that rebounding was going to be an issue going into the year.
The importance of these losses was shown as early as preseason, with Joe Mazzulla not hiding his frustration.
“Find five guys that rebound,” Mazzulla repeated multiple times bluntly when asked how the Celtics could improve after a preseason game against the Cavaliers.
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This trend continued into the regular season, with Boston being out-rebounded by a combined 31 boards during their first three games, on their way to an 0-3 start.
However, after 15 games, it seems like Mazzulla has found his “five guys that rebound,” and then some.
Although they still can’t be described as an elite rebounding team, the Celtics have gradually been improving. They now average 45 boards a night, which ranks 12th in the league.
“We got a long way to go,” Derrick White told reporters on Thursday. “But, beginning of the year, it seemed like we had a longer way to go than we do now.”
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One key piece of this improvement is center Neemias Queta. Queta leads the team with 8.1 rebounds a night, more than double his 3.8 average from last year.
On his way to leading the team, Queta has been impressed with the effort of the whole team in trying to find the root of their issues on the glass.
“We watched a lot of film on where we can get better,” Queta stated following Thursday’s practice. “A lot of times, rebounding is all about effort. Hitting first, making sure your guy doesn’t get it, go get it with two hands.”
Through this film study, Queta, Mazzulla, and the rest of the Celtics saw that cleaning up individual mistakes can lead to everyone benefitting. One mistake from ten different guys, that’s ten more opportunities for the opponents.
“You lose one or two possessions of each game individually, and then somebody else loses one too, and then you add up, and it makes a big difference,” Queta continued. “Everybody looked in the mirror and just thought about making themselves better.”
The Celtics will look to continue this upward tick in boards as they have a rematch with the Brooklyn Nets Friday night in the NBA Cup.
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