As far as NBA drama goes, there isn’t much intrigue in Friday’s game in Salt Lake City between the Utah Jazz and Boston Celtics.
Though the Jazz (16-54) beat the Washington Wizards on Wednesday night to snap a 10-game losing skid, they own the second-worst record in the league and are headed to the draft lottery. The only mystery that remains for Utah is how high its pick will be.
And while the Celtics (50-19) still have plenty to play for this spring, including defending their 2024 NBA title, they are all but locked into their postseason positioning. Barring a late-season collapse or an unexpected unraveling by No. 1 Cleveland, Boston will be the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs.
Thankfully, some side stories add interest to an otherwise meaningless game.
Two players from these teams, Utah’s Oscar Tshiebwe and Boston’s Baylor Scheierman, are playing like their careers are on the line — which they might be — and are thriving in opportunities given because of their teams’ circumstances.
Tshiebwe, who went undrafted in 2023 after earning 2022 National Player of the Year honors with Kentucky, continues to impress in his short NBA stints.
On Wednesday against the Wizards, the seemingly undersized 6-foot-8 center grabbed 10 rebounds in just 18 minutes.
Making that stat line even more impressive, the performance came on the same day Tshiebwe scored a career-high 37 points and snagged 26 rebounds for the Salt Lake City Stars. It was his record-setting seventh 20/20 game of the G-League season.
“My dad used to tell me, ‘you need to do something you love with all your heart’,” Tshiebwe said in an interview for the team’s website. “I want to empty my tank when I’m out there.”
Earlier this season, Tshiebwe played in two NBA games and excelled in a G-League game during a 24-hour period. The two-way player notched 16 points and 13 rebounds against the New Orleans Pelicans on March 2, hauled in 30 boards with 21 points the next morning for the Stars, and logged another 5:53 in playing time against the Detroit Pistons that night.
“The spirit of how he approaches every day is not lost on me or the team,” Jazz coach Will Hardy said. “He’s a joy to coach and a massive part of our locker room.”
The Celtics, winners of three straight and eight of nine, are being inspired by the efforts of Scheierman. He had a career-high 20 points with six 3-pointers on 7-of-8 overall shooting in Boston’s 104-96 win over the Brooklyn Nets at the TD Garden earlier this week.
“Honestly, Baylor changed the whole game for us,” Derrick White said.
Scheierman also had three rebounds and two steals in his impressive 15-minute stint, which gave Boston a needed boost.
“The thing I really like about him is his toughness,” Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla said. “He’s got a high level of toughness. He’s got a chip on his shoulder and kind of an F-U mentality to where he’s going to make it work. We saw that on some of his box-outs, some of his offensive rebounds.”
–Field Level Media
