{"id":387221,"date":"2026-01-04T11:24:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T11:24:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/387221\/"},"modified":"2026-01-04T11:24:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T11:24:07","slug":"celtics-wing-has-career-night-after-losing-starting-spot-in-clippers-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/387221\/","title":{"rendered":"Celtics wing has career night after losing starting spot in Clippers win"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Celtics changed up their starting lineup<\/a> for the first time in nearly two months in their win over the Clippers. Jordan Walsh has been the starter when healthy since Nov. 11, enjoying a breakout season. But C\u2019s coach Joe Mazzulla elected to roll with Sam Hauser with the starters facing the Clippers.<\/p>\n

Despite losing his starting spot, Walsh responded with one of the best games of his career. While it was the Jaylen Brown show in the Celtics\u2019 blowout win over the Clippers<\/a>, Walsh was also excellent coming off the bench. It was a huge bounce-back performance for Walsh, whose rotation spot was starting to diminish.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s definitely fuel,\u201d Walsh said via CLNS Media<\/a>. \u201cI didn\u2019t start tonight after starting for so long. To me, Joe was challenging me to come in and be the guy that I was, whatever a month ago. So I definitely took that on as a challenge. But at the same time, starting, bench, it don\u2019t matter. If I have a chance to come in and make an impact, that\u2019s all that matters to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Walsh finished with a double-double, putting up 13 points and a career-high 13 rebounds. He was at his best Saturday, coming up with high-energy plays for the Celtics. Even though he didn\u2019t get the start, Walsh clearly didn\u2019t let that affect him as he put together one of his best games of the year.<\/p>\n

Part of Walsh going to the bench also has to do with Hauser starting to heat up with his jumper. While Hauser finished 2-for-8 on 3-pointers Saturday, he\u2019s climbed out of a slow shooting start to open the year. He has these slumps that last a month or two, but he\u2019s a proven sharpshooter in the league.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had to make sure everybody felt me,\u201d Walsh said. \u201cI felt like they felt me tonight. The Clippers felt me. I feel like I came in and was able to impact the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Walsh played with more force as he also grabbed six offensive rebounds. When the 21-year-old is playing well, his activity level is all over the place to impact the game. Walsh can lock guys up defensively while providing endless energy on both ends of the court. He showed more of that Thursday with multiple nice plays.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought he was tremendous,\u201d Mazzulla said. \u201cI think the idea here is he didn\u2019t move to the bench. We went with Sam because we knew what their lineups were going to be and we wanted to get off to a great start on the offensive end.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s a testament to the guys. We\u2019re always going to do what gives us the best chance to win, and everyone has embraced that. So for him to understand that and for Sam to come out and play well, and for Jordan to even give us the production that he did just shows the mindset of the team.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Celtics changed up their starting lineup for the first time in nearly two months in their win…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":387222,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[355,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-387221","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-nba","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387221","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=387221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387221\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/387222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=387221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=387221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=387221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}