Torrey Craig seemed to fit right in during his Celtics debut
The veteran wing brought energy, defense, and knocked down a couple of threes.
Torrey Craig has played in a number of basketball environments during his lengthy career.
He was in Denver shortly before Nikola Jokic broke through as a perennial MVP candidate. He was on the 2021 Milwaukee Bucks championship team before he was traded during the season. The team he was traded to, Phoenix, played the Bucks in the Finals and lost that season.
But, playing at TD Garden as a Celtic has its own wow-factor, something that Craig got to experience for the first time on Wednesday.
“It was crazy. The atmosphere, the crowd, the fans,” Craig said. “It was a joy to play in front of a crowd like that. I’m glad I made my debut in the Garden. I’m glad I made my first shot.”
Craig made his first two 3-point attempts, finishing the night with six points and no misses.
“He was excellent, honestly. He’s going to bring energy, he hit a couple shots. He looked comfortable out there,” Kristaps Porzingis said. “We want him to be engaged like he is. He’s talking. He’s communicative from day one. Good vet presence.”
“He’s older than I thought. I thought he was younger than me, he’s a little bit older. So he’s a good voice to have in the locker room for sure, and just a good personality to have around.”
Craig also made his presence felt on the defensive end, Celtics forward Jayson Tatum said.
“He integrated pretty well,” Tatum said. “It ain’t like we had practice or anything like that, so we kind of threw him in there on the fly, but that’s part of being a professional, staying ready. Obviously he’ll get more comfortable with us and likewise as the season progresses, but he gave us a spark off the bench, hit some threes, was active on the defensive end, that’s what we expect from him.”
The Celtics went into the trade deadline looking for wing depth behind Tatum, Jaylen Brown, and Sam Hauser. They found a career 35.6 percent 3-point shooter who is also capable of guarding multiple positions in Craig.
“He’s got an important role just because of his versatility, so it’s going to take time for him to understand the language and the things that we do on both ends of the floor,” Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla said. “You can watch as much film and walk through it, but until he’s in a game it’s just going to continue to be a conversation of how we can use his versatility on both ends of the floor. He did some of that tonight with his defensive versatility and making those two shots. Just got to get him up to speed.”
Craig said he’s familiar with the Celtics’ defensive coverages having played against them in the past. Now he’s learning the lingo and the system as he continues to adjust to his new team.
Wednesday night was Craig’s first game-action since Dec. 30. He’ll have more time to rest now that the All-Star break is here.
“I was actually in better shape than I thought I was going to be,” Craig said. “And just gettting the rhythm, the flow of the game back, that’ll come with more games being played. Just take this time off to keep prepping my body and be ready to come back.”
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