Breakout: Boston Celtics Win as Hugo Gonzalez DOMINATES, Proves He's A Future STAR

0:00Now on the Lockdown Celtics podcast, the Celtics keep on winning games. They should probably be losing in this time. It's all about Hugo Gonzales. Lockdown Celtics, pot, home of the women. Baby. They're welcome back to the Lockdown Celtics podcast. We're right here on the Lockdown podcast network where it is your team every day. Your team is the Boston Celtics. And I talk about them Monday through Friday. Plus bonus podcasts when they play on weekends. They got a Friday game coming up. And there it is. I'll give you a bonus podcast. I'll give you a bonus podcast sometimes during the week. So you got to be subscribed to make sure you get all of the content that I'm dropping. And you can watch shown YouTube get into the comments section there. Show your thoughts with me there as well. If you're new, let me introduce myself. I'm John Corales, a beat writer covering the Celtics for Sports Illustrated Celtics on SI. I've also been doing this. I've been doing a job like the version of the job for about 20 years. I've been doing a lot of podcasts for 10. I've got a couple of books out on the team today.

1:00Well, look, the Celtics. No Jalen Brown. No Namiish Keta. Obviously still no Jason Tatum. Yannis came back. And I thought, this one might get a little rough. Nope. Celtics just dominated by the end. It was a real like the fourth quarter was just where they pulled away. But they keep on winning these games. That they should be losing. We'll get into individual performances later on. We'll get into paint pritchard and the great energy and defense. But you know, I have to start with Hugo Gonzalez, who if you're a long time listener, if you're a and every day or if you're with me every Monday through Friday, you know that I am the world's number one owner of Hugo Gonzalez stock. I have it all. I've had it all for a while. I've been on board with this kid from the beginning.

2:00And I've thought that he's going to be a star in this league. I don't know to what degree. Probably not a number one option, but also probably a number three. A number two maybe we'll see. We'll see what time brings us. But right now. After a recent kind of online, I'll call it a skirmish. And I don't want to bring online Twitter social media stuff into this podcast very much because a lot of you probably don't even exist in that space. Some of you do, but some of you don't. And some of you have gotten off of Twitter altogether. And you exist in other spots. I don't want to turn it into, you know, that place dominated in conversation. But I did have a recent thing where I tried to explain why do I, you know, why I think Hugo Gonzalez has such a high ceiling and a high floor. And it just became a whole big thing.

3:01So for this to happen is a very nice kind of. I'll call it a validation for me 18.6 rebounds. Let me read the stats here for courtesy of Dick Leip at NBC Sports Boston. Second rookie in Boston, South of history to get 18 points, 16 rebounds, three steals and two blocks in a game. You want to guess the other one? One take a second. Have you heard the stat yet? 18 points, 16 rebounds, three steals, two blocks. One other rookie did it and it was Larry Bird back in 1979. So always good company, always good company to have something that only you and Larry Bird have done. It's just the fourth time since the turn of the century that a rookie has had that stat line.

4:03The others, Mecca, Okafort, Kyle Filippowski, Isaiah Stewart. So Hugo did something that very few people have done. And the energy, the rebounding, the scoring, at this point, the scoring is he's not creating a ton for himself. Although he has some really crafty finishes. He is extraordinarily good at driving with his left hand and then going back around to his right, or driving to his right hand and finishing with his left. He finishes equally well around the rim with either hand. That's a major thing. When I talk about why am I so high on Hugo Gonzalez? Why am I sitting here? I don't want to say, I don't want to be dramatic and say staking my reputation on it. But I am saying it strongly. I am saying it with my chest. Hugo Gonzalez is going to be part of the core of the next generation of Celtics contenders.

5:09After Jalen and Jason move on or are past their primes, Hugo will be the guy who takes that next version of the Celtics to wherever, however far they go. And I think he'll be part of a winning franchise. He's 20 years old, just turned 20. And so obviously Jalen is going to be 30 next year and Jason will be 28. So there's going to be some overlap, right? Jalen, it's not like they're ancient, right? So the next two, three years, they'll still be really, really good. And Hugo will be in there being really, really good at 23, 24. He'll be very, very good. But he's still not, he still won't be in his prime. And at that point, when Hugo is 27 and 28, we're to eight years from now. We're talking about, I mean, Jalen will be 38 years old. Like his career will be either over or close to being over.

6:10Jason Tatum's career will be either over or close to being over, right? When you get past 36, you're close to being over. You only have a few years left at the most. Tatum probably has maybe, I think, a longer, more productive back end of his career, just because of his size and length. I think he could, he could adjust his game maybe a little bit more. But who knows? Jason, I mean, Jalen could, you know, Jalen has surprised me before. So I can make this kind of, I can make that statement and people can be like, Hey, you know, you doubted Jason, Jalen, you've doubted Jalen before. I'm just saying that he's, he's probably, and he has said that he probably doesn't want to play, play past like 35 anyway. So, but who knows how, what happens when he gets there? That's besides the point. My point is that Hugo Gonzalez is going to be this, he's going to be that good. He's going to be like I've said before.

7:12I think he's going to be at least what Derek White is. I think his, when, when it's all said and done, Hugo Gonzalez will be Derek White in terms of impact, like not the same kind of player, but he will score. He will pass. He will defend. He will do all of those things. It's a little bit different stylistically, he will be at least that as good as Derek White is today. And I don't say that lightly. I think Derek White is an amazing basketball player. He is incredible. He is super smart. He is, he's great. He shoots well. Even though forget this season, he shoots the ball well. He shot well in this game. He defends, I mean, God, Derek defending that in bounds that got stolen and then he just kind of snuck in from behind and tapped the ball away. And I think he got an assist on that play. Like Derek is, I hold Derek White in the absolute highest regard

8:17when it comes to basketball. So when I say Hugo Gonzalez is going to be Derek White, trust me, I do not say that lightly, but his instincts. But what you saw in this game, defensively the instincts, the block shots, the steals, and beyond that, watch how he defends, watch closely. How many times he just stops a guy from getting where he wants to go and the ball gets worked back out to the perimeter and there's no stat for that. Not publicly anyway. Maybe the teams track their own stats in a certain way, but there's nothing publicly that can track that. He is an incredible defender. The effort he plays with incredible effort. Playoff level effort. The want to is off the charts. His mind is just, I love the way it works from what I even know already.

9:21And I'm only just getting to know how it works. But he had a play where he had an open shot. I think it was, he took the rhythm, dribble, and he missed. And then the next play he got an and one. And like he was just shaking his head like, oh God, I can't believe. Like he was still pissed off that he missed the shot from before. He just made another great play, great finish. Drew and hit the shot and got the foul. And he's like, I still missed that other shot. His mind is where it needs to be. His work ethics is where it needs to be. Naturally, the gifts that he has, I'm just like, oh man, this kid is special. The way he moves, the types of plays. You go back to the last game where he's streaking up the right side. And he makes just this cut like he's running, you know, a route. And Jalen throws it to the front of the rim.

10:22And he just goes and gets it in reverse layup. That's just instinct and body control in athleticism. And then in this one, you know, a block shot coming down the right side and Derek just hits that like overhead bounce pass, which is such a nice pass to throw in that traffic. That has been like, that is, I cannot express just the natural ability that it takes to do that at his age and be comfortable making the plays that he makes. So I don't care if it was against Milwaukee and shorthanded or whatever. I thought he played really well. He struggled against the honest good. Good. I want him to struggle against the honest. He should struggle against the honest. He struggled with his shot a little bit. Good. That's fine. I want him to have a lot to work on. I'm not saying that Hugo is going to be that good tomorrow or next season

11:24or even maybe the season after that, because he's still young. But I'm telling you, when it comes time to sign him to a new deal and extension, Celtics needs to be like on top of it. The instant he's ready to be extended, you sign him for whatever you can, lock him up for as long as you can, because he should be here for a long time. I love this kid. So Hugo was awesome. The 18.6 rebounds, three steals, two blocks. Whew. Okay. I'm done gushing about Hugo. The Celtics played with great energy. They played great defense overall. Fifth game and seven nights. And they look like that. We'll talk about that when I come back. Today's show is brought to you by Indeed. We know how chaotic the workplace can be. We know deadlines are they stack up.

12:26They sneak up on you, especially with that overflowing inbox. And you have one position that you have to fill, even with all of that other stuff going on. What do you do? You just hope that somebody's going to come around and be there for you and show up in the magic resume pile. No, you need indeed sponsored jobs. That's going to help you reach the people actually fit what you're looking for. Skills, experience, location. So you're not just hoping the right candidate stumbles across your post. In the minute that I'm talking to you, companies like yours made 27 hires around the world on Indeed, according to Indeed data. If you're hiring, you need indeed sponsored jobs, because you'll spend less time searching. You'll spend more time actually interviewing candidates who check all of your boxes. If you're building a basketball team, you just open the door and hope that people come in that know how to play your system. Or do you go out and scout and find people who check all the boxes. Indeed, sponsored jobs is your scouts.

13:28You can get a $75 sponsor job credit by going to indeed.com slash podcast. Get your job the premium status. It deserves indeed.com slash podcast. Let them know that we sent you over there. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire. This is a job for indeed sponsored jobs. Thank you for making locked on Celtics. You're first listen every day. You're in every day or I appreciate you Monday through Friday being with me. Plus these bonus podcasts. Why not join the every day or club for 50 bucks a year? Or if you want to pay five bucks a month, you get ad free audio. So you don't know what I just said for the last minute plus. You can just listen to the ad free audio. It's compatible with all the major podcast apps. You can get on to our every day or club discord server, which is a group chat for Celtics fans, NBA fans, everybody. And a whole lot more. You got to go to lockdownseltics.supercast.com. Lockdownseltics.supercast.com.

14:29So the other impressive thing aside from me just like. Rubbing my hands together like an evil genius going. As I get all the Hugo stock and get ready to cash that in. The other thing that was really impressive to me in this game was the energy, the effort. The Celtics are playing on this fifth. Fifth night. Fifth game and seven nights. Like come on. Fifth game and seven nights. And they went out there and played hard. They played with incredible energy. I think. The Celtics are strategic in their sitting of Jalen Brown and sitting of the Mishkaida. I think they see these these opportunities to get Jalen some rest because he needs it. He's dealing with, you know, the lingering hamstring but also a knee issue and a wrist issue and all that stuff.

15:32So you get him some rest, but also you sit him down. You sit knee me down. You force the rest of the guys to be like, oh God, we can't rest. We can't give into the fatigue. We just got to go out there and play and you give guys who don't normally play 35 minutes like Ugo Gonzalez. You give him the 35 minutes. I've been begging for him to play 35 minutes and he's done that a couple times. It's not it's he played 36 against Toronto. And so this is the second most he's played this season. But you give Luca Garza 20 minutes off the bench. You give more opportunity to these guys who haven't gotten the opportunities recently. Garza was great. Just relentless seven offensive rebounds. This is the Luca Garza that we thought that that we've seen. And the one that I thought the Celtic should have played against the Denver Nuggets at the end of that road trip where they were kind of, you know, finally giving giving into like tired legs and, you know, the altitude and all that stuff.

16:47Garza is there. I hope if there's one thing to take away from this game. That Garza can sit for three, four, five weeks, whatever it's been. And still come in and find a way to be very, very effective. The seven offensive rebounds were huge. The Celtic had 19 offensive rebounds. The energy to go out there and get them was just off the charts. Now Luca had seven. Hugo had five. So that's 12 offensive rebounds from two guys. That is, I mean, those guys set the tone. And you had Baylor Shireman. All of those guys just stepping up and giving you the energy, the defense. It was incredible to watch.

17:47The Celtics defense gave up 20, 23, 22 and 16 points in the four quarters. 20, 23, 22 and 16. And the obviously only gave up 81 points. So the, and the bucks, you know, didn't shoot great, but the Celtics really were. They were energetic. They were physical. They, you know, Yannis was the only guy that was really, really hurting them. They got, you know, they got something from Usman Dang. But he only was five of 10. He was the only other guy that made any noise. The Bobby Portis had 12 points, but that's it. Portis was a minus 21. I just, I'm just impressed. Like the Celtics don't give into the excuses. And that's a credit. That's a credit to Joe Missoula.

18:48That's a credit to all of the staff. It's a credit to Brad Stevens. This has been, this has been a thing for a while. They, they just don't take that ready made. Ah, all right. So fifth game and seven nights. You knock it up, buddy, schedule lost. You know, you had the Philly game, which was originally scheduled for six. So the extra two hours, two and a half really with the NBC schedule. That's, that's the difference between getting, getting to bed at two versus getting to bed at four for 30. That's a big difference. That's a huge difference. And the Celtics get in super late. You get in at 4 a.m. You got to turn around and play a game locally at 6.30 p.m. There's every excuse right there. It's just laid out for you.

19:48You know, play the tough, a tough game. You only pulled away from Philadelphia late. But they don't, they don't give into that. Joe Missoula has them ready. He has them ready. That's. These guys and Brad puts together a team of hard workers, prove it guys. And Joe has them all working together on the same page. They, they don't give into. Wanting to. Make their money or they're all under contract for next year. So that, that does help. No one, no one's kind of going out showing out for, you know, a new deal right now. But, you know, there's, there's, there's always that thing in the back of their heads. But Joe has them on the same page. They all come in and they play for each other.

20:48I mean, yeah. Yeah, this, this is a, this is 21 minutes so far of like gushing about the Celtics. But look, man, they're, they're. What else am I going to do? How am I going to criticize this team? You know, and here's, I'll save this. I'll get into individual performances. The Celtics are now also, I'll get it to this when I come back. They're 41 and 20. I understand the 40 20 rule. What? Did the Celtic, can we, can we finesse this a little bit for the Celtics? I'll talk about that when I come back. Today's show is brought to you by Better Help. Now, therapy is an important part of my life because I've had times in my life where things were not easy. I had to learn more about myself. I had to grow as a person. I had to understand why I was making certain choices in my life.

21:48Therapy was very helpful to me. Better help can help you get the therapy that might be helpful to you as well or a friend of yours. The thing about Better Help that's really helpful is there's two things. Number one, it's all online. So you don't have to just be a prisoner of who is a therapist in your area. You can go to one of 30,000 licensed therapists that have served more than six million people worldwide. It's the world's largest online therapy platform and it works. You just fill out a short questionnaire and you get matched with a licensed therapist. So right away, a lot of the legwork is done for you. And the best part is if that fit isn't there, you just switch. At any time, no extra cost, you just switch. So you have an opportunity to work on your emotional well-being.

22:52Talk through whatever it is. Stress at home. Stress at work. Stress from, you know, maybe it's your sports teams. Maybe it's something simple. Maybe you just want to talk through some things there. It can be anything that is weighing you down. Find support and feel lighter in therapy. Sign up and get 10% off at BetterHelp.com slash Locked-On NBA. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash Locked-On NBA. Today's show is also brought to you by FanDuel. College Basketball is nonstop, big games, tight spreads, momentum swings every single night. From early tip-offs to late night West Coast shootouts, there's always action on the board. And now FanDuel is giving you a way to turn that energy into even bigger potential wins with a college basketball parlay profit boost. You can build any college hoops parlay you want, rivalry games, ranked matchups, whatever you want. You can mix spreads, totals, and player props to match how you see the slate playing out.

23:52And then you can apply the profit boost and instantly bump the potential payout. Go safe or go bold, ride with the team you've been following all season. It's your parlay, your style, now with more upside behind it. Head to FanDuel.com right now to get started. That's FanDuel.com. When you sign up, they will ask you to settle in it, say your budget, please do so. Whatever your disposable income is, whatever you can afford to lose, you can do that. Set that as your budget so you're gambling responsibly at FanDuel. Play your game. Thanks for making lockdown Celtics your first listen every day. You want to make maybe a lockdown bucks your second listen, listen to what the Milwaukee side of the story is. Or locked on NBA game night, seven nights a week covering the entire league. I'll be there covering tomorrow night's games with Jake Madison. So you can join me as we cover the entire league there. It's a great way to keep up with everything.

24:53You were watching the Celtics game game night will get you all caught up tomorrow on everything else that happened. So let me before I get into some of these individual performances. The Celtics are currently 41 and 20. They won three in a row. So they were, they lost their 20th game before they won their 40th. And there's that 40 20 rule where Phil Jackson said contenders win 40 games before they lose 20. Which is okay sure true history has born that out. There are I think five exceptions since 1980. But the Celtics are in this weird position. So they were 38 and 20 and then they've won games 39, 40 and 41. And I just want to know what the difference is between 41 and 20 having won your 40th before you lose it.

26:01What's the difference between that and what the Celtics did right like if the Celtics got to 40 and 19. And then went one and two in their next two games to get to 41 and 20. Why does that make them more of a contender than getting to 38 and 20 and then going on a three game winning streak. It doesn't make sense to me. But I know the rule and the rule has been followed. Now I'll be honest with you. The other five I didn't check to see how close the four like if you didn't get to 40 before 20 were they in the same boat as the Celtics. There are exceptions and the Celtics do fit one of those exceptions. They're going to get Tatum back and the Houston Rockets when they traded for Clyde Drexler were an exception. But I don't know, they had 41 and 20.

27:04I have I just have a hard time if we're looking at contenders. I have a hard time believing that the Celtics are not a contender at 41 and 20 because of because they lost their 20th game before they got to 40. That doesn't make any sense to me. Every other metric says that they're right there. So I don't know. I'd love to hear your opinion because I think this is this could be like a unique part of the exceptions. Okay. Anyway, another side note. I'm like this could be locked on side notes. I take these little pads all over the place and I get back to my point. And my point here for the rest of this is Peyton Pritchard, Derek White. He also had good games.

28:04Peyton Pritchard had he led the team in scoring 25 points. 10 of 23 shooting five of 10 from three. Also had nine assists. Great to see Peyton back in the scoring. He's had a couple of tough games. He was scoreless against Philly. And you know, Joe Mizzoula after this game was like, look, he's not defined by scoring. We need him to do other things. He's done other things. He's defended. He's rebounded. So don't look at it as he didn't score much. So he's not playing well. That's not true. You can play well and still not score much. But his job is also to be a scorer. So it's nice to see Peyton get back to the scoring. I was never worried about him not scoring much or whatever. He's he's adjusting to the changes with Vuchavitch here and all that stuff. And he sometimes like he's he's not a perfect player. And sometimes you just have a couple of bad games.

29:05Like honestly, you just have a couple of bad games. Everybody who's played extended amounts of organized basketball understands. You have a couple of bad games here and there. So Peyton's fine. It was a nice game for him. Nice to see him get get that get those 25 points. Derek White shot poorly, but was really good. Otherwise defensively, like I said before, was fantastic. Like that once it's what was one steal, but who that steal was nice. He's just he's just such an elite defender. But he's also in total control. Like Joe Mazula talked about how at the end of the third quarter when Milwaukee was making a run. You put Derek White back in and he kind of controls things and settles things down. You know, he had nine assists as well.

30:0518.9 assists, even though he shot 28% from the field. Not a great shooting night, but a good basketball night for him. Nicole Vouchovich got the start 10.7 rebounds, five assists. Didn't shoot well, but you see how he can you can run the offense through him. So a nice nice game, five offensive rebounds. Now you now you see how the seller's got to 19. Seven for Luca five. I'm sorry, he didn't have five. I was looking at Hugo. He had five. But Jordan Walsh had three. So there you go. There's your 15. And then you get a couple of stragglers. Peyton had a couple. Sam had one, Baylor had one. So there's your 19. But I thought Vouch did a, you know, decent job. 10.5 and seven. Plus 25. Even though he didn't shoot well. He did, he made some really nice passes.

31:07And so a decent game from him. Baylor Shireman with the broken thumb. 10.6 rebounds. High energy, you know, getting in there, defending, doing all those things. Sam Houser played well. I think four of eight from the field. He, you know, rebounds, he, you know, a steal, a block. He defends, he does a lot of different things. My favorite, Houser play, that's probably your favorite too. The, the three pointer that he missed at the end of the first quarter. But he followed his shot and got the rebound and hit a little fade away. I love that play because shooters know exactly. Once you let the ball go, you're like, oh, short, short until the left. He knew it right away. Just a little short, just a little left. As soon as he landed, you could see him already going to where he knew where the ball was going to go. That's why he got the offensive rebound and got that, got that put back.

32:10He just right away off the, these guys are so, such finely tuned machines that right away. He lets it go and he's like, nope, that's not going in, that's going over there. I'm going to go get that ball. Nice minutes from, from Ron Harper. No one, no one was bad in this game. Ron Harper comes in, makes some nice plays. Jordan Walsh didn't do much scoring, but seven rebounds, three offensive rebounds. A plus eight in 16 minutes. Just nice, a nice performance from the Celtics. I am just loving the Hugo minutes though. So, any chance I get to do a little bit of a victory lap on Hugo, I'm going to do it. I just, he's a talented, he's a talented kid. You know, they were talking about it on the NBC Sports Boston.

33:10I want to, I think it was the post game show. And we've mentioned this on the podcast before too. Brad Stevens, because he was at Butler and didn't get all the primer crew. It's like Jason Tatum wasn't going to Butler, but he had to go find the other guys. He had to find, he has an eye for talent that is kind of unrealized, right? The, the guys that are good, but the, the prime, like, when he's at Butler, you get Duke, you get North Carolina, you got all these other schools that are going to get the number one guys. And you got to fight to put a good team together. This is, it's a very similar concept. You're going to say, well, how does that apply to the Boston Celtics? But when you're picking in the 25th through 30, you're at the bottom of the draft. You don't get the top, you know, the, the primo recruits, you don't get the top guys.

34:16At the bottom of that draft, there's a little window there where from 25 to like 31, 32 now. With the way the, the system is set up, that's, if you can hit in that spot, you're good. You're really good. And Brad has hit in that spot. You got Hugo, you got Baylor who I think has shown enough, like Baylor can stick around. Baylor can be a good player. I don't think Baylor is a future star, but I think Baylor can be a good player. He can be a guy that you lean on for 25 minutes of game, and he's going to do some things. Maybe the shooting comes around and, and levels off and becomes more consistent and all that stuff. But he's, he's a guy you can count on. I think he's going to be a role player part of the rotation, one of your top seven or eight. But Hugo, that's a hit, man.

35:18That is a hit and a half. So Brad, just finding these diamonds in the rough down there. All right, that's the show. I'll be back tomorrow, bonus content throughout the week and on weekends when the Celtics play. Whenever they play, I'll have a post game podcast to make sure you're subscribed. You can watch the show on YouTube as always. And look, sharing the podcast is the best thing you can do. Spread the word, tell everybody they should be listening to and watching the lockdown Celtics podcast. Here in the lockdown podcast network is your team every day.