For Luka Garza, staying ready isn’t optional — it’s everything
PHILADELPHIA —At Celtics shootaround on Sunday, Luke Garza has ice on his knees, his common post-workout routine.
In his head, he’s ready to play heavy minutes in Sunday’s Game 4 towards 76erssimply as he did within the Celtics’ closing common season recreation, when he exploded for 27 factors in a season-high 38 minutes of motion.
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More possible, he’ll play just some minutes.
But, simply as he has all 12 months, he’ll be ready for any end result.
“I expect to play,” Garza mentioned. “If I do, or I don’t — it doesn’t matter. It’s just I got to have that mindset to be ready and go out there and try to make some plays.”
In Friday’s Game 3 Celtics win, Garza performed 4 minutes, all of which got here within the second quarter. In that span, he secured an offensive board that led to a Baylor Scheierman three-pointer, hit a top-of-the-key three of his personal, and once more discovered Scheierman for his second triple.
His mindset in these playoffs has been the identical it’s been all 12 months.
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“I just stick to what’s worked for me in the past — obviously, just trying to screen, make energy plays, offensive rebound, do what I can to kind of help the offensive flow,” Garza mentioned. “And try not to make any game plan mistakes and stuff like that.”
After a profession season, Garza is generally out of the playoff rotation, however he is staying ready for these spurts when his quantity is known as.
Joe Mazzulla turned to Garza for rotation stints in Games 1 and three, with the Celtics two major bigs in foul journey; queta you may have averaged 4 fouls in 19 minutes per recreation, and Nikola Vucevic you may have averaged 3.7 fouls in 22 minutes per recreation this sequence.
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“When I see someone getting foul trouble a little bit, I know it’s probably coming,” Garza mentioned. “I just prepare my mind for every single game.”
Jaylen Brown referred to Friday’s Game 3 as a Game 7.
Garza mentioned the crew might want to dig deep and embrace that mindset once more.
“If you want to win a championship, it’s not hard,” Garza mentioned. “So, you got to have that mindset every single night in the playoffs. You know how important it is. It’s mandatory.”
History would recommend the Celtics are in a fairly great spot. Of the 600 NBA groups which have taken a 2-1 sequence lead, 480 have gone on to win the sequence.
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But for Celtics aren’t frightened about that historical past.
For them, the one previous that’s on their thoughts is their 111-97 loss in Game 2.
“There’s obviously a heightened sense of urgency knowing what happened in Game 2,” Garza mentioned. “So we know we got to have a certain humility about us, knowing that we got two more games to win. We got to approach it that way. And obviously, it’s a huge one.”
