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WALTHAM, Mass. – There is one thing that the Boston Celtics look forward to more than everything else come Tuesday.
“Playing against somebody else,” Jae Crowder said Monday morning with a sigh of relief and pleasure.
Crowder and the Celtics will board a bus shortly after 3 p.m. Tuesday afternoon to head to Amherst, Mass., where they will take on the Philadelphia 76ers at 7 p.m. at the Mullins Center. It will be their first time seeing a color other than green or white this season.
“You go a week of beating up each other, you just want to play against somebody else and see different sets and different looks,” Crowder added. “Just get observation of what we need to work on.”
Go down the list of members of the Celtics and everyone will have things to work on Tuesday night. That includes Brad Stevens.
“I haven’t drawn up a play in a huddle with a clock on me in five months, and I think those are good things to do,” said Stevens.
“I think that [the preseason] benefits everybody, and yes there is an adjustment period for the coaches as well as the players.”
Speaking of the players, they will be looking to progress in a similar fashion to the growth they experienced during Friday night’s intersquad scrimmage at TD Garden. The veterans view Tuesday’s tilt as an opportunity to shake off the rust of going months without game action, all while improving their physical state.
“Just getting back into the flow of the game and trying to get a rhythm,” Crowder said of his goals for the exhibition game.
Al Horford added, “I think the biggest thing for us is to just continue working on our conditioning and making sure that we’re sharp on our plays. It’s more about us (than the opponent), and this is the time to do it.”
Meanwhile, the rookies will enter Tuesday’s action with a different point of view. Tuesday’s game will mark their first NBA contest. Preseason or not, they need to sharpen their play in order to snag a role in Stevens’ rotation.
“Positioning, things like that,” rookie Jaylen Brown said of what he aims to work on Tuesday night. “Just picking spots, little things that Brad has probably talked to you about that I’m working on as well. Just positioning and experience overall.”
The only experience the Celtics have to this point is practicing against themselves, and that gets old after a just few days. They’re ready to get out there and enjoy themselves, and they’re ready to do it against another team.
“Playing basketball is one of the funnest things to do, especially for me. It’s one of the things I love to do.” an excited Brown told reporters. “So just getting up and down the floor and competing at a high level, I’m always looking forward to.”
After a week of training camp, Celtics fans are looking forward to it, too.