The Celtics didn’t have a rotation player younger than 27 at the end of last season. They didn’t have one under 26 when they won the NBA title the year before. A supremely talented team, they also were one of the league’s most experienced, able to rely solely on established veteran talent in nearly every game that mattered.
Today’s Celtics don’t have that luxury.
With many of those proven vets either gone (Jrue Holiday, Kristaps Porzingis, Al Horford, Luke Kornet) or currently sidelined (Jayson Tatum), Boston has had no choice this season but to play, and trust, the kids.
On Tuesday, the three youngest players on their roster — 19-year-old Hugo Gonzalez, 21-year-old Jordan Walsh and Josh Minott, who turned 23 last week — helped secure a signature win over one of the top teams in the Eastern Conference.
“You saw just the depth of our team throughout some of that game,” head coach Joe Mazzulla said after the Celtics’ 123-117 win over the Knicks at TD Garden. “It started with Hugo and finished with Josh and Jordan.”
Gonzalez, who saw sporadic playing time throughout November, sparked an early Celtics comeback by successfully stymying Knicks big man Karl-Anthony Towns throughout the second quarter. He forced two Towns turnovers and another by Jalen Brunson. Boston outscored New York 37-20 in the frame to turn a 14-point deficit into a six-point halftime lead.
The rookie played 23 minutes in the win, tying his career high set in Boston’s previous matchup with the Knicks on Oct. 24.
“I just see him being a dog,” Walsh said. “Every day, everywhere, you just see the way he works out. He’s like zipping. It’s also cool to see — I love when he gets in the game. Last time we played New York, he did a great job on Brunson. He obviously did the same thing this time.”
Minott scored 11 points, went 3-for-5 from 3-point range and grabbed six rebounds in his 27 minutes off the bench, which included more extended stretches as a small-ball center. In the third quarter, he hit a three, pulled down an offensive board and blocked a Brunson layup as Boston built a 94-76 lead.
In the fourth, after a Gonzalez flagrant foul and two quick New York buckets cut the Celtics’ cushion from 12 points to three in a flash, Minott drilled another three out of a timeout to give his team some breathing room.
The spotlight then shifted to Walsh, who’d been quiet to that point. Playing alongside Jaylen Brown, Derrick White, Sam Hauser and Minott in a new-look closing lineup, the player teammates are now calling “Garbage Man” collected three offensive rebounds, scored off two of them, picked off a Brunson pass and assisted on a White 3-pointer.
Then, with just over two minutes remaining and the Celtics up 113-110, a driving Brown drew the attention of multiple Knicks defenders and kicked it to Walsh in the corner. Walsh pump-faked to avoid Towns, then drove baseline and finished a tough layup over Miles McBride. Boston led the rest of the way.
“It was an evolution for both Jordan and Josh,” Mazzulla said. “They went to doubling Jaylen, so they did a good job catching the ball in the seam and just making 2-on-1 reads. So it starts with Jaylen’s ability to trust his teammates, and then it goes to Jordan and Josh’s evolution of just understanding they’re being guarded by different matchups throughout the game.”
On Walsh, who notched his first career double-double two nights earlier in a win at Cleveland, Mazzulla added: “The last six minutes of the game, he was just a great playmaker.”
Brown finished with a season-high 42 points, but Walsh outscored him in the fourth quarter, playing with a level of confidence and composure that he admitted was absent earlier in his career. Since moving the third-year pro into the starting lineup on Nov. 12 — a change Brown advocated for — the Celtics are 7-2.
“I’m starting to see Jordan playing like a grown man,” Brown said. “And it’s amazing to see. Just from him coming out of his shell, being aggressive. He’s learning every day, so I’m loving it.”
The Celtics also have gotten quality minutes from Minott, who made the first nine starts of his career before giving way to Walsh. The 6-foot-8 wing has made 64.7% of his threes over the last seven games (11-for-17), and Boston outscored New York by 12 points with him on the court.
The emergence of these young contributors — and others like 26-year-old first-time starting center Neemias Queta — has buttressed a roster that looked dangerously top-heavy entering the season.
“They’re slowly chipping away at what it means to be really impactful in this league,” said Mazzulla, whose team has notched wins over the Knicks, Cavaliers, Pistons and Magic in the last 10 days. “Really, what they do matters for our team, and having that role of going out there every night and knowing they can change the game. And everybody on the team has done that. Tonight I thought was the best example of multiple guys doing that. It came from Hugo, it came from Jordan, it came from Josh. Even Sam defensively, I thought was great.
“They’re just having an understanding of how much they can impact the game and how important that is for us and how much it impacts winning. So they’ve just got to keep doing it.”