BOSTON — When Jrue Holiday was flanked at his introductory news conference by Boston president Brad Stevens, along with Celtics co-owners Wyc Grousbecek and Steve Pagliuca, the contingent couldn’t hold back their excitement. Part of the reason why, Stevens said, was because they were fresh off watching Holiday’s first practice with the team.
Pagliuca pointed at a specific play where C’s star Jaylen Brown drove toward the hoop with a “full head of steam” but was stopped by Holiday. Brown said the play at Holiday was intentional because he wanted to test his new teammate to see how he would react to his surroundings.
“I wanted to go after him a little bit,” Brown said. “Fresh, new to the city. Welcome him to the team. So it’s the best way to do it. He met the challenge. He don’t look like a guy that’s going to back down from any challenges. So he did in that case, so we’ve just been going at it during training camp.”
The Celtics know Holiday well from their battles with the Bucks. When the East rivals went the full seven games in the 2022 East semifinals, it was partly because of Holiday’s heroics late in Game 5 in Boston. The C’s rallied from the 3-2 series deficit, but Holiday showed his value on both sides of the ball.
Holiday’s first practice with the Celtics was on Wednesday as the trade with the Blazers officially went through. Before that, all he was able to do was just watch. On the particular play with Brown on Day 1, Holiday said he stumbled despite knowing he’s one of the strongest guards in the league.
“We’ve had some battles,” Holiday said of Brown. “I feel like he knows my competitive nature. He knows I don’t back down from anybody. With somebody that can dish out, I can dish it right back. So I think from just based off of experience, he knows that the energy and the competitiveness that I’m going to bring on a night in and night out basis is going to be something that you can always count on me to do.”
Leave a Reply