Walsh Scores 25 as C’s Beat LA for First Win of Summer League
Jordan Walsh #JordanWalsh
Presented on Wednesday night with his first chance to beat LA, Celtics rookie Jordan Walsh didn’t let the opportunity slip away.
The 19-year-old forward scored 17 of his game-high 25 points in the second half, leading Boston back from a double-digit halftime deficit for a 95-90 win over the archrival Lakers.
The Celtics trailed by as many as 14 points just before the end of the first half. Walsh then led them out blazing in the first five minutes of the third quarter when he scored 12 points during a 17-5 Celtics run.
Shortly after knocking down a 3-pointer at the 5:03 mark, which gave Boston its first lead since the opening minutes, Walsh uttered a guttural roar of approval to urge his team to keep going. And so they did just that, taking a 73-70 advantage into the fourth quarter.
“It’s all been part of the game plan,” Walsh said of his team’s third-quarter run during an interview with ESPN between the final two frames. “Boston, we’re known for being tough, we’re known for fighting, and that’s what we’re doing now. We gathered our team at halftime. We told them, ‘Hey, us being down 10 at halftime is nothing. Let’s fight through it; let’s get the dub.’”
Boston kept fighting all the way through the fourth quarter, going up by as many as eight points before walking away with its first win of Summer League in Las Vegas. Walsh made sure to put the nail in the coffin, sealing the victory with a thunderous dunk with 15 seconds remaining.
Even in Summer League, it feels good to put the “L” in Lakers. Especially for a 19-year-old rookie looking to make his mark in green.
Brad Stevens joined the ESPN crew for a six-minute stretch in the first quarter and touched on a variety of offseason subjects. Perhaps the most noteworthy topic was the health of Rob Williams, which Stevens spoke about with glowing optimism.
As we all know, Williams has dealt with a few rough offseasons throughout his career, including last summer when he had to undergo a knee operation, which kept him sidelined for the first 29 games of the regular season. Upon his return in mid-December, the veteran center seemed fairly steady (aside from a hamstring strain, which caused him to miss eight games in March) and rolled through the playoffs with a perfect 20-game attendance.
All of that second-half playing time doesn’t appear to have had any wear and tear on Williams’ knee, according to Boston’s president of basketball operations, who said the big man is feeling the healthiest he’s felt in quite some time.
“He really had a good second half, and we’re hoping to build off of that,” said Stevens. “He hasn’t had a summer of good health in a while, but right now, he feels really good. So we’re looking forward to him building off of that.”