BOSTON — When a team is without its starting All-Star point guard, without its backup point guard, and its other backup point guard is making his first career NBA start, it pays to have a point center.
Al Horford has been that for stretches throughout his two-year stint in Boston. He said he expects an uptick in that role in the short term with Kyrie Irving battling a thigh bruise, Marcus Smart out with a cut on his hand [...]
BOSTON — When a team is without its starting All-Star point guard, without its backup point guard, and its other backup point guard is making his first career NBA start, it pays to have a point center.
Al Horford has been that for stretches throughout his two-year stint in Boston. He said he expects an uptick in that role in the short term with Kyrie Irving battling a thigh bruise, Marcus Smart out with a cut on his hand suffered when he punched a glass picture frame in a Los Angeles hotel room, and Terry Rozier thrust into the starting five.
“I always try to handle it anyway, right?” Horford said before Wednesday night’s game against the New York Knicks. “Bringing up the ball up and stuff, I am sure I will be doing some more of that as well. The main thing for us is to make sure we make the game easy for each other.
“When you don’t have a guy like Kyrie or Smart out there you have to really rely on each other, move the ball. And I do expect to handle it a little more.”
Irving was able to finish the game after hurting his thigh while running into an illegal screen in Monday’s victory in Denver, but it stiffened up on him Tuesday and he was ruled out early Wednesday afternoon.
“Didn’t do much today,” Celtics coach Brad Stevens said before the game. “Will get reassessed tomorrow. It’s not for sure that he will practice [Thursday] and play Friday [against the Atlanta Hawks]. We’ll take it day-by-day and figure it out.”
Smart was with the team on Wednesday, but is expected to miss at least another week as he recovers from the hand laceration. Stevens reiterated that he was “disappointed” in Smart’s actions in Los Angeles and that he has yet to sit down with Celtics president of basketball operations Danny Ainge about “what we’re going to do about it internally” when it comes to possible team discipline.
Rozier got his first career start in place of Irving with Smart out.
“Terry’s been great for us all year,” Stevens said. “I don’t think it changes what we need [Rozier] to do, what he does. He will probably play more minutes, which everybody loves."
Shane Larkin was able to give it a go after missing Monday’s game with right knee soreness. Rookie point guard Kadeem Allen was in uniform after being activated from his two-way G-League contract.
C's don't re-sign Eddie
Stevens indicated that the injury to Irving and injury and possible suspension of Smart played a role in the team’s decision not to sign forward Jarell Eddie to a second 10-day contract on Wednesday. "We talked about it a little bit today prior to that decision being made,” the coach said. “I think it was more about right now we have to be sure about our ball-handling situation.” … The coach pointed to Daniel Theis and Larkin as two big reasons the team has been able to weather so many injuries this season. “They have bailed us out of a lot of situations and have helped us win a lot of close games,” he said. “Those were home runs as far as when they signed [so late in the summer].”