LOS ANGELES \u2014 Removed from the Boston Celtics starting lineup for the first time since early in the season, Jordan Walsh said he needs to do more.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think just leaving a print on the game,\u201d Walsh said. \u201cI feel like the other team has to feel me. The other staff has to feel me. The other organization has to feel me. Every time I\u2019m on the court, I\u2019ve got to constantly make it hard for everybody else to kind of survive on the other team. I feel like I hadn\u2019t been doing that. So, I\u2019ve gotta make sure that I am doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Walsh started 20 straight games for the Celtics after joining the first unit Nov. 12. But he played only five minutes Thursday night during a win against the Sacramento Kings before getting benched at halftime. Joe Mazzulla, who started Sam Hauser in the second half of that game, decided to stick with Hauser in the first unit Saturday against the LA Clippers.<\/p>\n
Walsh spoke to the media before it was revealed Hauser would take his place in the starting lineup. Still, based on Walsh\u2019s comments, he might have known the move was coming.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was definitely a good spurt (in the starting lineup) for sure, but staying even keel is what\u2019s more important,\u201d Walsh said. \u201cNever getting too high, never getting too low.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m no stranger to this, you know what I\u2019m saying?\u201d added Walsh, who spent most of his first two seasons on the bench. \u201cI started where I had to always stay ready for my next opportunity. And if that\u2019s the situation I\u2019m in again now, that\u2019s what I got to be ready for.\u201d<\/p>\n
After the win against Sacramento, Mazzulla said the choice to move away from Walsh at halftime was not because of anything he\u2019s doing wrong.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just we can go to so many different things,\u201d Mazzulla said. \u201cI think you saw what Sam (Hauser) was able to do in the first half. And I think out of halftime, making a change can kind of throw a team off to start (the third quarter). And I think that\u2019s one of the reasons we went on a run was (Neemias Queta\u2019s) defense, and then, just kind of our offense was obviously different with Sam out there on the floor. So, it\u2019s really just taking any advantage we can with the entire roster that we have and just trying to win segments of the game and kind of go on runs and catch the opponent off guard with different matchups and different opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n
Walsh said the halftime benching showed him \u201cthat I need to step it up, basically.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like if that was the case, I didn\u2019t make my mark enough \u2014 or impactful enough \u2014 to stay out there,\u201d Walsh said. \u201cSo, I\u2019ve got to do more.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES \u2014 Removed from the Boston Celtics starting lineup for the first time since early in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":386750,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[2242,355,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-386749","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-boston-celtics","9":"tag-nba","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=386749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/386750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}