The Celtics Have To Make an IMPOSSIBLE Decision...

The Celtics have been forced into an impossible decision, folks, but it's not necessarily a negative decision that they have to make. It is just a big one going forward in the season. There's already been some questions arising surrounding what is going to go on with these players here that you see on screen. How is the center rotation going to continue to work out as we get further and further into the regular season? The Celtics now sit at three and one. After a close call against the Brooklyn Nets the other night where Jason Tatum with his 40 points and an overtime game winner saved the Boston Celtics. But folks, today on Celtics Digest, we are going to be discussing the Boston Celtics center room. What has been happening with them? What are the implications of their play so far? What are things going to look like in the future? How is Joe Mazzulla scheming? We're going to cover all of that here today. Folks, I am your host, Kellen Frangione with Digest Media, with Celtics Digest. Folks, I'm excited to be back talking about Celtics basketball. I am pretty happy with what I've seen from the Boston Celtics this season so far, except for that Nets game because it was still too close for comfort and not be battling at home against the Brooklyn Nets who are struggling the way that they are. But it happens. There's nights in the NBA. Anyone can go off. These are the best players in the world. Things happen. We move, we move. The next game is tomorrow against the Chicago Bulls. I expect that to be a blowout once again. We already saw it was a couple days ago. I will not be surprised if that happens again, but folks, before we get any further into this video, I do want to talk to you guys about Kalshi because on Kalshi, you're trading directly against other users and not the house like traditional sports books. You're buying yes or no contracts on the outcome of events across sports, politics, or even the weather. For example, the Boston Celtics total wins this NBA season where you can go for 45 plus wins, 50 plus wins, or even 55 plus wins if you so please. You can pivot and do anything you really want, so you can look to the Celtics to be Eastern champions, where a yes or no contract of $25 pays out nearly $182, folks, but once again. So on Kalshi, and if you are interested in trying it out, make sure you use our code as you see it right here on screen. It is DigestNBA in all caps. Use the link in the description or the pinned comment of this video to get $55 added to your account instantly when you trade your first 25, folks. As you see it right there, DigestNBA. Thank you to Kalshi for sponsoring this video. And without further ado, let's just get into it, folks. What has been going on with the center room? Well, Joe Mazzulla's center decision. Nearly costed the Celtics in this Brooklyn Nets game at home because Mitchell Robinson made a few mistakes down the stretch, although he had a pretty solid game overall. He was, in fact, minus 17, which is not good. The one of four free throws, which we're going to get into in a second, is what really hurt the Celtics. But seven points and five rebounds and a steal, not bad. But you do want to see a little more from Mitchell Robinson, a guy who we have high hopes for this NBA season. But what happened in this Nets game? Mitchell Robinson missed two free throws with three seconds left in the fourth quarter with us up three. And then Mikael Brown Jr., the rookie for the Brooklyn Nets, hit a game-tying three with about two-tenths of a second left to go in regulation. Forced overtime. When this tweet was made, the Nets were up four in overtime. Luckily, we know how that turned out. Jason Tatum, clutch time, sealed the game. But Mitchell Robinson did miss his free throws. We already knew this was going to be a problem. Everyone knows this about him. Mitchell Robinson also said, I got my ass kicked on the glass. I got to compete better after the season debut against the Pistons, where he also felt like he didn't play that well. So he's been struggling a little bit to start the season, although it's positive to know that Joe Mazzulla said the following. about Mitchell Robinson when we acquired him. He said, Mitch is one of the smartest players I've been around. His ability to process information, his ability to understand. You just throw him in the mix and he can just pick it up. He's been around great coaches, great players, so he knows the game. He's been playing nine years. He's smart. But it still begs the question, when Mitchell Robinson misses two free throws in crunch time, that really could have decided the game, almost did. Gave the Nets the chance to hit that shot and send it to overtime. It begs the question, how playable is Mitchell Robinson in these crunch time moments in the clutch? Is he playable? Because you want him out there. At one time, you want him out there to grab your rebounds and create extra possessions. But with time winding down, the other team knows they can hack a Mitch. He is not a guarantee to hit the free throws. So it just begs the question of the other guys. And now I want to talk about the other centers that we have on this team. But before I talk about Keita, I'm going to talk about Luka Garza. He seems to be making a little bit of a case for more minutes. He has been pretty solid, obviously. You're not really going to see it on the stat sheet, but. He's been doing pretty solid. The Celtics' defensive rating is actually noticeably better with Luka Garza on the floor. The offensive rating is better with him off. The net rating is pretty similar, but actually a couple points better with Garza on the floor. He has been doing a pretty solid job. And so, once again, folks, I mean, it just begs the question of what do you want to do? Could you even put a guy like Garza in in some of these situations? You know that he can hit his free throws a little better than Mitchell Robinson. It's a whole debacle, and then if we take a look at the center rotation as a whole, our three guys, you can see that Keita currently leads the way with the most points per game with eight. Mitchell Robinson is leading the way with 4.8 rebounds per game. Keita is leading the way with 1.8 blocks per game. Free throw percentage, Garza is in fact the leader. Plus minus per game, Keita is the leader. And Mitchell Robinson's is nearly a minus six per game. Not great so far. And Mitchell Robinson has been getting the most minutes of the three thus far. But right now in the comments, I want to know all of your thoughts. Who do you think? Deserves the most minutes in this rotation. Is it how it is right now? Is it Mitchell Robinson? Is it Keita? Could Garza see an uptick in minutes? Does he deserve that? I want to hear what you guys think in the comments, so before we go any further, let me know what you guys think. But without further ado, Joe Mazzulla has also been quoted talking about rotation, saying you want to be able to validate the entire roster and just know that at different times you're going to go to different guys. There's another quote saying from Mike Conley when he actually was given the opportunity in a preseason game to do the substitutions for Joe Mazzulla. He said it's a lot harder than you think. It's just feeling out the game. Continuing forward, folks. That Keita foul is one of the most egregious I've seen in a long time, was a tweet from Sleeper Celtics during that Nets game. But moving forward, folks, what else has been going on? Well, the Celtics' rebounding dip puts the centers under a little bit of pressure. Now, to talk about this, we can see Keita's impact. As I just showed Garza's impact, you see it here. The Celtics net rating is noticeably better with Keita on the floor. Offensive rating, a lot better with Keita on the floor. And defensive rating barely changes. So it seems like Keita has actually made the most positive impact of the three centers thus far. And now I did kind of expect that just because Keita also has the highest offense. Actually, maybe Garza has the highest offensive ceiling. But right now, I mean, Keita has been a little more proven as he's already kind of been in the rotation going back to last year. Another interesting thing here, Luka Garza with and without Jayson Tatum. As you can see right here, Garza's stats are better without Tatum, but that's understandable because Tatum just takes his minutes. You see he's just had more minutes without Tatum. More minutes, you're obviously going to see an increase in volume. But just a little interesting thing I wanted to show. Is Garza deserving of a little bit more minutes? I think that he has proven he can be pretty solid. He had a really great preseason as well, so I've been pleased with what I'm seeing from him. Although, if you look at his stats this season, you're not going to be impressed, unfortunately. I mean, you guys see it right here. It's nothing crazy, low percentiles, but not bad. And keep in mind that that's in nine minutes per game. Maybe if he saw an uptick to something like 15 minutes per game, Numbers will increase. People forget Luka Garza was college player of the year at one point, so you never know. Obviously, college is not NBA and whatever, but this guy has talent. He has skills. He can do certain things. Luka Garza was quoted himself saying, obviously, we all bring different things to the table, and we're going to do those things when called upon. When he was asked about the rotation, that's a pretty good answer. Another interesting thing on the three-man center rotation, Keita said, toughness, physicality. That's something that we do really well, all three of us. We're all pretty down-to-earth guys, so I think that'll mesh us pretty. Keita also said when the, oh, sorry, Sleeper Celtics actually said, apologies. He said, we need more Tatum and Keita minutes. Do you guys agree? Do you guys disagree? I think that we already see a pretty decent amount of Tatum and Keita on the floor together, but... Nevertheless, continuing onward on the topic of Nemyi Keita. Neemias Keita has been giving the Celtics another center option, and we already know this dating back to last season. Once again, as I showed you earlier in the video, Keita is having a pretty decent season, what we would expect from him so far, and he's also been taking some stabs at three-point shots. In that Knicks game, he hit a pretty big corner three, shot it with confidence. Tatum was quoted saying that was his favorite moment of that game Because he was very, very happy. for Neemias Keita, but I'm pleased with what I've seen from him so far. And once again, I think that Keita is only getting better. He's not an earth shaker. He's not an earth mover, not doing crazy, crazy things just yet, but it's about the potential. And I think Keita still has potential. We shall see how the rest of the season plays out. For a little more on him in his recent form, you can see it right here in this nice little graphic as we have it on screen. Field goal percentage last five average is 81.1%. Very, very high. Now, obviously, it's because Keita takes a lot of his shots close to the basket. But once again, just talking about the center rotation, I want to get your guys' thoughts. What are your early thoughts on this new center rotation of Robinson, Keita, and Garza? Now, also keep in mind, earlier in the season, Keita was very happy to learn that the Celtics were getting Mitchell Robinson. He had a long quote saying, Mitchell's going to be a great addition for us. I'm extremely happy. I don't have to go against him anymore because he used to get all these rebounds. It's going to be good to have him on our side, being able to have a player that's so accomplished, being able to guard multiple positions. One of the best rebounders the league has ever seen. I'm excited to be his teammate. And that's another thing I actually wanted to talk about a little bit. I feel like Mitchell Robinson hasn't really been living up to that extremely talented and great rebounder, you know, whole thing that he has going on. He's only averaging like 4.85 rebounds a game. I want to see more from him. He has been getting those offensive rebounds that he typically gets, but I still want to see him being a little more aggressive on the glass. And as he said, he felt like in that Pistons game, he just got his. kicked, didn't play as well as he could. But folks, to close out this video, Joe Mazzulla also said about Mitchell Robinson and the center room in general, he's a very important piece to what we do. So the standard is a little bit higher, and the expectation is a little bit higher. It just comes with time, understanding that every play, you're at the nucleus of what we're trying to accomplish on both ends of the floor. He's taking on the responsibility of knowing how important that position, obviously the center position, is to us. Once again, before we conclude this video, just showing you guys the numbers here for the three centers and their profiles so far. Keep in mind, we are only four games into the regular season, so small sample size here. But just a teaser of what's to come with these guys. Once again, folks, thank you very much for watching this video. I am your host, Kellen Frangione with Celtics Digest. Today has been discussing the three centers on this Celtics squad, what the rotation is looking like, what it could look like moving forward into the season. It's going to be interesting. I am very excited still about the addition of Mitchell Robinson. I'm excited about Luka Garza and him getting better and better. But let me know your thoughts, folks. And once again, the Boston Celtics are playing tomorrow night, taking on the Chicago Bulls once again, as you see it right here. The Celtics are looking to stay undefeated at TD Garden at home, and I think they should have no problem doing it against the Bulls, seeing how that last game went. Absolute blowout as you see, 134-91. Thank you all for watching this video, and I'll see you guys in the next one.