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Buckle your seatbelts! The Boston Celtics are heading to the Eastern Conference finals, where they will face off against the Miami Heat for an opportunity to challenge for an NBA championship.
Let’s be fair, we witnessed a slobber-knocker between Boston and the Milwaukee Bucks in the second round of the playoffs, and the series could have gone either way. Yet, the Celtics found a way to defeat the reigning champions in a do-or-die game seven, courtesy of a monster performance from third-year big man Grant Williams.
“Grant played great tonight. He took more shots than anybody on the team. I think that’s a first – I told him don’t get used to that. But obviously, we needed him tonight; he played amazing and had 27 points. In the playoffs, you need that. You need guys to come off the bench and be a star in their role.
You know, Grant won us a playoff game tonight. A game seven. I’m extremely happy for him,” Jayson Tatum said following Boston’s game seven victory, in which Williams took 18 three-point shot attempts.
Williams finished the contest with 27 points, six rebounds, and two blocks while hitting 45.5% of his field-goal attempts and 38.9% of his perimeter shots. With Tatum getting into foul trouble early in the third quarter, Williams provided the additional scoring punch the Celtics required as they bid to keep Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Bucks at arm’s length.
Ime Udoka Encouraged Williams to ‘Let it Fly’
Since taking the role of Celtics head coach, Ime Udoka has been steadfast in his game plan of finding the open man and taking the best shot available. While that led to some growing pains earlier in the season, the Celtics have developed into a selfless basketball team on the offensive end. Now, they punish opponents for helping off shooters on the perimeter.
Grant Williams has been hot and cold from deep throughout the season but has still been one of the Celtics’ more reliable marksmen and reaped the benefits of the Celtics’ drive and kick game in what was undoubtedly the biggest game of his young career so far.
However, after missing multiple shots from deep early in the game, Williams became hesitant to shoot the ball and began driving out of the corners with regularity, leading Udoka to whisper some words of wisdom into the Tennessee product’s ear.
“I told him to let it fly. They were disrespecting you more tonight than earlier in the series. And that was the plan on him and other guys, really shifting and making them try to beat us. And you saw it on the first one he made, then he missed a few and got a little hesitant.
I basically said, ‘shoot the ball; what else can you do?’ Stop driving into a crowd, take the shot that they’re giving you, and he broke Steph Curry’s record for attempts in a game seven. He said two Charlotte shooters – he’s going to gloat about it for sure,” Udoka told reporters shortly after Boston’s game seven win.
Williams Proving His Worth
We’re only 12 months removed from Williams struggling to crack the Celtics rotation and being labeled a potential draft bust for Danny Ainge. However, after an off-season of conditioning and shooting improvements, Williams quickly became an integral member of the Celtics rotation. He is now arguably one of the better defenders in the NBA.
Speaking at the start of the season, Williams explained how he was carrying additional weight last season to hang with the bigger players in the league when asked to play the center position.
“My rookie year, I had to gain weight to play the 5. Then I never lost that weight. Now, I’ve lost 12-15 pounds. I’ve got another 8-10 to lose to be able to play the 4 more. I want to be like a baby Al (Horford),” Williams told reporters at the Celtics media day on September 27, 2021.
It would seem that Williams’ off-season adjustments and changes to his training regime are paying dividends, and it’s highly likely that he will continue to be an influential member of the rotation in the conference finals and for multiple years to come.
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