Rob Williams' Top 5 Performances from the 2020-21 Season

addByline("Taylor Snow","Celtics.com","Celtics");

Robert Williams packed a whole lot of excitement into 55 appearances this past season, as he stuffed the Celtics' stat sheet on a nightly basis while setting multiple franchise and NBA records along the way.

Now, it’s time to unpack some of those performances, as we look back at the third-year center’s Top 5 most impressive efforts of the 2020-21 campaign.

Williams broke the 20-minute mark in less than half of his games this season, but that didn’t prevent him from putting up some monster numbers. One noteworthy example of such was the career-high 15-rebound effort he put forth on the fourth of January against Toronto while playing just 19 minutes and 40 seconds. Corralling nearly one board per minute, Williams became the first Celtics player since Wayne Embry in 1967 to log at least 15 rebounds while playing fewer than 20 minutes. Six of his rebounds came on the offensive end, where he also chipped in with 11 points on 4-of-5 shooting to help the C’s pick up a 126-114 win on the road.

March 17 wasn’t a pretty night for the Celtics overall, but it was a beautiful night for Williams from an individual standpoint. The third-year center was one of Boston’s lone bright spots during a 117-110 loss in Cleveland, as he came off the bench to tally 13 points on 6-of-7 shooting, 14 rebounds, three assists, two steals, and four blocked shot all in 27 minutes of action. Williams logged twice as many rebounds as any other Celtic in the game and notched one more block than the entire Cavs team combined. The only thing missing from his strong effort was the win.

We already touched on how well Timelord managed his court time this season, but there is another historic jam-packed effort of his that we must bring to light. On March 14 in Houston, Williams managed to stuff 16 points, 13 rebounds, one assist, one steal, and three blocked shots into just 19 minutes and 15 seconds of action, while helping to guide Boston to a 134-107 win. In the process, he became just the 10th player in NBA history to log at least that many points and rebounds while playing fewer than 20 minutes. And he also became the second Celtics player to produce at least that many points and rebounds while shooting 100 percent from the field (7-of-7), joining Ed Pinckney.

Williams was a shot-swatting machine throughout the regular season, but he saved his most prolific rim-protecting performance for the playoffs. In the first game of the first round against Brooklyn, Williams logged a Celtics postseason record of nine blocked shots, while also setting the NBA playoff record for most blocks recorded off the bench. He nearly recorded a triple-double in the process, adding 11 points and nine rebounds to his 23-minute effort. The Celtics ended up losing Game 1 by 11 points, but they still outscored Brooklyn by five when their stalwart shot-blocker was on the court.

Houston had a problem containing Williams on March 14, as highlighted above, but that was nothing compared to how he blasted the Rockets on April 2. Setting career-highs in both scoring and assists, Williams erupted for 20 points, eight dimes, nine rebounds, one steal, and one block, all in 26 minutes of turnover-free basketball. Oh, and he didn’t miss a single field goal attempt, shooting 9-for-9 from the floor, thus maintaining his perfect career shooting clip against Houston. Williams also logged a plus-22 during the 118-102 win, which placed the cherry on top of the best performance of his professional career.