After completing his first NBA training camp, Baylor Scheierman received a bit of brutal honesty from Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla.
In essence: I know we drafted you in the first round. But don’t expect to step in and immediately contribute on a team that just won a championship and returned nearly its entire roster. In fact, you probably won’t play much at all. Get used to it, and don’t get discouraged.
“There’s nothing harder than being a young player with the Celtics,” Mazzulla said at the time, “because we’re trying to win championships and develop at the same time, and not many organizations are in both of those spaces. So the young guys have to be very, very patient because the roster is top-heavy, and although you may think you’re getting better … when you’re in a situation like the Celtics organization, it can be hard to see the growth in that. So you just kind of have to be patient.”
Patience for Scheierman meant appearing in just five of Boston’s first 40 games and totaling 34 mostly garbage-time minutes in those appearances. For the first half of the season, the vast majority of his playing time came in the G League, where he averaged 34 minutes per game for the Maine Celtics. The skills that made Scheierman a collegiate star at South Dakota State and Creighton — long-range shooting, underrated passing, hustle plays — were evident on the farm circuit but largely invisible with the big club.
But Scheierman’s most recent G League assignment ended more than six weeks ago. Since then, he’s gone from one of the last players on Mazzulla’s bench to a semi-regular NBA contributor. He’s seen action in 10 of the Celtics’ last 17 games, mostly when Boston was missing one or more starters due to injuries or rest.
When Jaylen Brown, Kristaps Porzingis, Jrue Holiday, Al Horford and Sam Hauser all sat against the similarly depleted 76ers on March 6, Scheierman played 30 minutes, scored 15 points and cockily blew a kiss at Philadelphia’s bench after one of his three made 3-pointers.
That, it turned out, was the appetizer. Scheierman’s true breakout came two weeks later, when his incredible burst of microwave shooting helped power the Jayson Tatum-and-Brown-less Celtics to a 104-96 win over the Brooklyn Nets on Tuesday night.
The 24-year-old rookie played 16 minutes — including 10:41 straight in the third and fourth quarters — and piled up 20 points on 7-of-8 shooting. He attempted seven threes and made six of them, including a go-ahead third-quarter buzzer-beater and a pull-up heat check in transition after a steal at the other end. He also banked in a three before his buzzer-beater that was waved off because of a foul before the shot.
Scheierman was the first rookie in NBA history to hit six 3-pointers in an outing that brief, per Stathead, and just the third in the last 40 seasons to score 20 points while logging 16 or fewer minutes.
Mazzulla appreciated the other, less obvious aspects of his performance, too — the two offensive rebounds, the two steals, the energy he brought at both ends. The coach used the word “toughness” five times when assessing Scheierman’s game, praising him for his “F-U mentality.”
“He’s got a high level of toughness to him,” Mazzulla said. “He’s got a good basketball IQ. To me, it’s just the consistency and the patience. You can’t get discouraged. You’re not defined by one day, two days. It’s really just a process. And there’s the small moments that you have to take advantage of, and all those guys have taken advantage in different moments. Tonight, it was his night. He did a great job, and just got to continue to work.”
Confidence, Mazzulla said, never has been an issue for Scheierman. But he looks far more comfortable on an NBA court than he did earlier this season, and that’s yielded much stronger results:
Scheierman’s first 15 NBA games (Oct. 24-Feb. 26): 4-for-24, 1-for-15 from three, three offensive rebounds, seven assists, three steals
Scheierman’s last four NBA games (March 6-March 20): 13-for-21, 10-for-17 from three, four offensive rebounds, seven assists, four steals
(Scheierman also went 4-for-24 and 3-for-17 from deep in the preseason after shooting 36.2% and 29.4% in summer league.)
“I would say with each game, he’s getting more and more comfortable, and today, you could tell,” Porzingis said. “After each three, his confidence just kept on going. Transition, pump-fake three, side-step, hit another three. Like, he was just rolling, and his confidence was sky-high and feeling good. Those kind of moments are always special to watch, especially to have a game like that at home, in front of our crowd. This kind of game I think will stay in his memory for his whole career.”
Teammates’ confidence in Scheierman showed on his end-of-clock three. Inbounding the ball with 1.1 seconds left in the quarter, he tried to feed an open Derrick White in the corner, only for Porzingis to intercept his pass and fire it back to him. Scheierman quickly gathered the ball, set his feet and hit the shot — then proceeded to bury his next four, as well, before checking out of the game to a standing ovation with 3:58 remaining.
“One thing you can’t say about him is he doesn’t play hard,” Porzingis said. “He plays really hard, and I think the fans see that and they appreciate that. And then on top of that, a game like this offensively — just beautiful to watch. That was a beautiful, beautiful game from him.”
Will that “beautiful” outing, and the promising progress that preceded it, earn Scheierman a spot in Mazzulla’s postseason rotation? Probably not. The Celtics still boast one of the NBA’s deepest and most talented rosters, with a nine-man core group (the five starters, plus Horford, Hauser, Payton Pritchard and Luke Kornet) that will be tough to crack when everyone is healthy.
But he’s now part of that next tier of players (along with Neemias Queta, Torrey Craig and Jordan Walsh) who could be called on as injury replacements, or to provide a spark if the Celtics are scuffling. And his development bodes well for Boston’s future, as finding affordable depth options will be vital for the high-priced C’s continued success.
With the Celtics’ playoff standing unlikely to change over their final 13 games — they’re all but guaranteed to land the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference behind Cleveland — Scheierman should see more opportunities to impress as Mazzulla manages his starters’ workloads.
“Every time I step out on that court,” Scheierman said, “I’m trying to go 110% and play as hard as I can, regardless of the score or who we’re playing, and just try to put my best foot forward every single time.”
Originally Published: March 19, 2025 at 10:33 AM EDT