Ready Rozier rescues C’s
What we saw from Terry Rozier Wednesday night may not have been a given a couple of weeks earlier.
The 11 points on 4-of6 shooting (2-of-3 treys), the four rebounds and the plus-19 in 25 minutes on the floor in the 117-108 win over Washington might not have been in him. He admitted that it’s possible he wouldn’t have been ready to react this way.
Of course, that wouldn’t have been even a question earlier on. Rozier had been a registered member of the Celtics’ rotation. In his second year, the point guard had showed significant improvement through the summer and into training camp and earned his way onto the floor.
He’d played in the season’s first 30 games, averaging 18.0 minutes, 5.9 points, 3.2 rebounds and 1.8 assists as the Celts, though dogged by injuries to some key regulars, ran out to a 17-13 start.
Then on Christmas Day — poof — it was gone. That afternoon in New York, if Rozier had found lumps of coal in his special NBA merchandise holidaythemed hoop stockings and left them there, it wouldn’t have mattered. He didn’t get off the pine.
Brad Stevens explained that he wanted to use Marcus Smart to post up against some smaller Knicks, and Smart responded with 15 points and a team-high plus-17 in the victory. Stevens said the move was no reflection on Rozier, but he allowed that it could continue.
And it did — for three games until Avery Bradley missed the Miami game with the illness that went through the Celts.
He sat again when Bradley returned, but had filtered back into the plan when Bradley went out with a strained Achilles tendon suffered last Friday.
But Rozier has been through a lot in a short period of time, and he was ready on Wednesday to the point where just he and Isaiah Thomas played the entire fourth quarter as the Celts caught and pulled away from the Wizards.
The performance, particularly under the circumstances for a young player still trying to fully establish himself, was impressive to his teammates.
“Hell, yeah,” said veteran Gerald Green. “You always got to appreciate that, because that’s one of the hardest things to do is to stay ready at all times when you’re not playing.
“It’s hard to have high spirits. It’s hard to always keep yourself mentally locked in and focused. But big kudos to him, because that’s what he’s been doing. He’s been a good teammate, good pro — comes in early, gets his work in. He’s doing all the right things. He had an opportunity to play, and he was a big key for us winning.”
Rozier acknowledged that he might have had trouble finding his keys after initially becoming bench-bound.
“Yeah, it was tough at the beginning,” he said. “I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t.
“The credit goes to coach, Danny Ainge and a lot of the guys on the team that just, you know, helped me stay level-headed. Even though I wasn’t playing, I was coming in on off days and putting up a lot of work. I’d see coach in there, and we got to talk about a lot of stuff — just telling me to stay ready.
“I got off that little attitude I had, and I just always told myself, ‘Just be ready, man. You never know when your number’s going to be called.’ This game is up and down, so you have to be ready. (Wednesday against Washington) was just one of those perfect nights where I got a chance and I tried to help the team win.
“But the first two games, yeah, it was tough. I mean, you just don’t go from playing to not playing. It’s tough. And then you add in me just being young. But it’s part of growing and part of my maturing. It’s human nature to get down, but you have to deal with that. And I had a lot of great people around me to help me get through it.”
For Stevens, there is comfort in knowing that all the weapons on his bench are fully loaded.
“I love it,” he said of Rozier’s performance. “I love it. He’s doing a great job with that. He keeps working and keeps getting better.
“You know, one of the things we did was talk to him about it. It was the day after Christmas and we had an optional day for the guys, and Terry was one of the guys that came in. He hadn’t played the day before, and he came in and worked his tail off. We just talked about, ‘Sometimes we’re going to want to post Smart. It’s nothing against you. Just be ready for when your number’s called, and it’ll be called plenty.’ ”
When it was on Wednesday, Rozier had the right answer.
“It shows maturity,” said the 22-year-old. “It shows being a pro.”