On Tuesday night, the Boston Celtics faced off against the Denver Nuggets, a cross-conference battle between top teams. Despite the absence of Nikola Jokic, Denver was able to take home the win thanks to some hot shooting and a timely fourth quarter surge.
While Boston didn’t necessarily play bad defensively, it was clear that Denver was more active and responded to the increased physicality better. That being said, nobody in the game worked harder than Neemias Queta.
Queta was an absolute beast on the boards, bringing down 20 total rebounds in just under 25 minutes on the floor. It was an even split of offensive and defensive boards, 10 of each. In fact, Neemi became the first NBA player on record to log at least 10 offensive and 10 defensive rebounds in under 25 minutes. He was also the first Celtics player since 1989 to hit those rebounding marks at all in a single game, and the fourth player in the past 50 years to tally 20+ boards in under 25 minutes.
It was a historic performance, and had an incredible impact on the flow of the game. From the beginning of the season, Joe Mazzulla has emphasized the importance of valuing and creating more possessions than the opposing team, and Queta’s glass cleaning did just that. Boston was able to win the rebounding battle 53 to 39, and they also scored 27 second-chance points to Denver’s 16. The Celtics were also able to get more total shots up in the game, 95 to 87.
It was impossible not to admire Neemi’s work on the boards, fighting through contact while surrounded by Nuggets players. He was an absolute work horse, energizing the Celtics bench, crowd, and even the broadcasters. Fellow CelticsBlogger, Nik Land, was able to catch a segment of the Spanish broadcast during one of Neemi’s most electric sequences of the night:
Through the profound effort, it did seem like Queta was pretty exhausted. Neemi was subbed out at the 6:50 mark of the fourth when the game was tied. Until the fourth quarter, neither team had led by more than 9 points. From the point that Neemi subbed out, though, Denver went on an 11-0 run over the next three minutes, taking the first double-digit lead of the game, and extending it to as much as 13. Queta didn’t see the floor again until there were about 18 seconds left, brought in solely for rebounding purposes as the Celtics were trying to extend the game by intentionally fouling.
In the end, Neemi showed just why Brad Stevens, Joe Mazzulla, and the rest of the Celtics organization trust him to be the starting center for this team. Wins and losses happen over the course of the season, but the process is just as if not more important than the result. With effort like that, it’s hard to be mad at the result. Sometimes the other team just has a better shooting night than you and you have to live with it.