Boston Celtics face Robert Williams III dilemma ahead of Game 4
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Friday 10 June 2022 20:35, UK
The Boston Celtics have a key decision to make at the center position on Friday night with Robert Williams III only having had a single day to rest his troublesome knee in between games.
The fourth-year big man has been a revelation this season for the Celtics and excelled defensively in Boston's 116-100 victory in Game 3 with four blocks, three steals and was a team-high plus-21 on the floor.
But he has been battling a knee injury throughout the Celtics' marvellous postseason run, which sees them now just one home victory in Game 4 – live on Sky Sports Arena & Main Event from 1.45am overnight – from giving themselves three shots at winning the Larry O'Brien trophy.
The short gap between the third and fourth games of the series presents the Celtics with a decision to make, as neither team nor player will want to risk worsening the pain or damage and seeing him ruled out for the remainder. Do they play Williams? Let him sit? Operate on a minutes restriction? There are options to consider...
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Whatever they choose to do, it's fair to say that Williams' left knee has become a major player unto itself through three games of the 2022 NBA Finals. When it's sore – a lingering discomfort from surgery in late March to repair a torn meniscus, compounded by semi-regular usage – Williams will noticeably limp up and down the court and play with limited effectiveness, if at all.
When the knee is loose and causing the Louisiana native less severe discomfort, Williams can be decidedly disruptive as a defender, providing elite rim protection while offering a potent alley-oop option to the Celtics' offense. He was both of those things in Game 3.
The Celtics' injury reports have been consistent in assessing his condition as 'questionable' but when the knee cooperates, or Williams pushes through to make it so, good things for Boston tend to go from questionable to probable, too.
With just a 48-hour turnaround this time, the Celtics' regimen for keeping him available will be severely tested. Williams gave NBA.com a detailed glimpse into the treatment he endures daily.
"Start off usually like a deep tissue massage, back of my calf, front of my knee," he said. "Calf stretch. Get some ice, maybe ice one or two times. Wait a couple hours. Really just repeat the same thing."
The knee bothers him more moving laterally, he said, than running or jumping. He and the Celtics are being careful and remain confident no further damage will be done by playing on it. There are, after all, no more than four games left until a long R&R opportunity.
"I've been playing like this like two, three weeks. I'm used to it," Williams said. "We're in the Finals, man."
In the fourth quarter of Wednesday's game, he swatted a floater by Stephen Curry that veered into goaltending territory, perhaps, but still had the Warriors flummoxed. He closed out on Klay Thompson's 3-point attempt, then hustled/hobbled back for the rebound.
A couple of times, Williams even seemed to be in the heads of Golden State shooters, who thought twice and either passed the ball or relocated themselves to avoid his ability to block or alter their shots. Normally that's the sort of preemptive intimidation associated with giants such as Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert or prime Dikembe Mutombo. That Williams is getting similar respect playing on one-and-a-half legs speaks to his value and determination.
"Yeah, Robert changes everything," team-mate Al Horford said. "It's great to see him being able to play and show some of the things that he can do, how he can impact the game.
"Just his presence, people in the league, everybody, we all know each other. He's capable of blocking jump shots, people are coming in the lane, they have to think about it just because he's around there. Even on the perimeter he's doing a good job getting out there and contesting.
"I know he's obviously playing through a lot of stuff, and I'm just very happy to see him succeed right now."
On the other end of that happiness spectrum would be Curry and his fellow Warriors. It wasn't just Williams' defense or his eight points, 10 rebounds, three steals and four blocks in Game 3. It's the fact that Golden State's swirling, high-octane, deep-threat attack often can send opposing big men to the bench entirely. But Williams has managed to stay on the floor more than most, knee permitting.
"We've talked about just being aware of where he is," Curry said. "Because especially depending on who he's guarding, he can kind of come out of nowhere. There's a play early in the fourth, I got by Grant Williams and thought I had daylight to get a shot up, and you underestimate how athletic he was and how much he could bother that shot.
"There are situations where we can use that to our advantage because he's going to be aggressive. He's going to keep trying to make plays on the ball. You have to be aware of where he is because that's what he does for them on that end of the floor."
Particularly in his current state, Williams still has much to learn. Deep into the third quarter, for instance, he gave Klay Thompson too much space on the right wing for a 3-point bucket, earning Udoka's ire.
But he has come a long way from the 27th pick out of Texas A&M in the 2018 draft, who earned his "Time Lord" nickname for bouts of tardiness or no-shows in his rookie year. Despite appearing in only 61 games this season, Williams was voted to the NBA's All-Defensive Second Team.
"I think he's always a high-level, pretty instinctual guy," Udoka said on Thursday. "Some things that we've asked him to do have been different than he has had to do throughout his career. I think just off the top, the amount of switching and perimeter play, but he's a guy that can do it."
Udoka was on Philadelphia's and Brooklyn's benches the past two seasons and knew how careful both teams were to keep away from Williams.
"The rim protection stands out, but his ability to move his feet on the perimeter and the luxury of having him off the ball at times," the coach said, allows the Celtics to occasionally pair Williams and Horford.
Of Boston's first 14 playoff games this spring, Williams missed seven. He has participated in the past seven, however, logging at least 14 minutes each time. If he can stay on the floor long enough in what remains in this series, it will force Golden State to find answers offensively they have, as of yet, not been able to.
Whether he can stay fit and whether the Warriors can find those answers, could be key factors in deciding who is declared champion within the next week-to-10 days.
Watch the NBA Finals exclusively on Sky Sports - see the list of games here and subscribe to watch the live action. (Steve Aschburner from NBA.com also contributed to this report)
