AUBURN HILLS, MI – After a few days of downtime for the holidays, the Celtics are beginning to heal up.
Amir Johnson (plantar fasciitis) is expected to return to the Celtics lineup Saturday night as Boston looks for its third straight victory when they face the Pistons at the Palace of Auburn Hills. Johnson missed the last two games for the Celtics. Meanwhile, Marcus Smart (knee) continues to progress toward making his own return, and there’s a chance that could happen Sunday night in Boston against the New York Knicks.
Smart last played for the Celtics on November 20 against the Brooklyn Nets.
“I’ve been told everybody but Marcus is available,” Stevens said of his team before their morning shootaround at The Palace. “We’ll evaluate Amir as he goes through this today and then make that determination after shootaround. But all indications are that he should be good to go.”
Smart continues to work in practice, and was expected to do some two-on-two work this morning. According to Stevens, when he does return, he’ll likely be on a minutes restriction.
“That would be a stretch,” Stevens said of Smart potentially playing against the Knicks on Sunday. “It would be a strict minutes limitation, mostly because of conditioning and everything else.”
Smart won’t be playing tonight as the Celtics face the Pistons for the second time in 10 days in the same building. It’s an odd wrinkle in the Celtics’ schedule, and it presents a unique challenge as Kentavious Caldwell-Pope lit them up last time these teams collided at The Palace. Caldwell-Pope dropped 31 on the Celtics to start a three-game winning streak for the Pistons, but had just 12 points in Detroit’s December 23 loss to the Atlanta Hawks.
Caldwell-Pope hit 10 field goals against the Celtics, the most he’s hit all season long, so his eyes must have lit up when he saw Boston on the home schedule again tonight.
The Celtics, on the other hand, aren’t as thrilled about the scheduling quirk. Stevens agreed that the scenario is strange, but his bigger concern was mustering a better effort against their opponents than they did in the previous get-together. “They beat us and scored 119 points on us,” Stevens said. “We’re going to have to be a lot better tonight than we were last time.”
So how much does the defensive gameplan change given that the Celtics gave up so many points the last time around?
“I think you have to go back and evaluate it, did you end up defending them and did they end up taking shots that you can live with. I’d say they went on some runs where we did not do a good job of defending them,” Stevens said. “They’re an explosive offensive team and a very good statistical defensive team. When KCP and Reggie Jackson play the way they did against us last time, they’re tough to beat.”
Stevens didn’t mention Andre Drummond, but the Pistons’ big man finished third in the first set of All-Star voting returns (148,278 votes) for the Eastern Conference. Drummond is the NBA’s leading rebounder and a force to be reckoned with in the paint. He didn’t have a huge game last Wednesday, but you can bet he’s still on the scouting report.
