Boston Celtics: 4 unanswered questions for the playoffs

Is Robert Williams ready to play playoff basketball?

This season was supposed to be the breakout year for the sophomore big man, but due to injuries, Williams has spent the last two seasons mostly on the bench. The athletic shot-blocking big man seemed to fill the needs of every one of the Celtics defects.

Williams’ story is one of the weirdest in the NBA. Coming out of college, Williams was a two-time defensive player of the year winner, but there were rumors that he did not have the drive to play in the NBA.

So the Celtics were able to steal the lottery-projected player at pick 27. In his first season, he sat the majority of games because of Stevens’ philosophy of not playing young players too much early.

In the few games where he did receive significant action, Williams played decently well, but he only had three games where he surpassed 20 minutes. This season, most insider reporters agreed that when they say Williams in the offseason, he was working harder than anyone else, and was hoping to play significant minutes without Horford and Baynes in the mix.

In the first few games, it looked like Theis was the starting center, and it was a race between Kanter and Williams for the number two spot. Each game, Williams was getting more and more action, and by the eighth game of the season, he played 22 and a half minutes and recorded six blocks. Afterward, he became a regular 15 minute per game player, while forcing nearly two turnovers a game on defense.

Nevertheless, in mid-December, everything he was working for seemed pointless. Williams missed 37 games with hip edema and did not return until March. On a minute restriction, Williams quickly started to find his role on the second unit once again. Then he got more bad luck that the season stopped.

Once again, Williams would have to regroup and fight for a role that he was not guaranteed. Still relatively unproven, the Celtics big man rotation for the playoffs did not look like it was going to include him. The center only had a handful of games to establish his worth to play when it counted.

In the bubble, somehow, Williams has done just that. In his first game with real action against the Nets, Williams put up a career-high 18 points on 7-of-7 shooting, with three blocks and five rebounds. He has played double-digit minutes in the next three games as well, all of which they won. He also is shooting 83 percent from the floor. And on August 11th, against the Memphis Grizzlies, Williams scored 10 points, had seven rebounds, and three blocks in 14 minutes.

In looks like Williams is going to be the number two guy in the rotation for the center spot, now ahead of Grant Williams and Enes Kanter. He still will probably not play too many meaningful minutes; however, the Celtics will play the Philadelphia 76ers in the first round. Even though Ben Simmons is out for the season, the 76ers have a lot of strength and height, so the Boston Celtics may need Williams to combat it.