Boston Celtics’ Gordon Hayward is feeling his athleticism “slowly starting to come back”

https://www.masslive.com/celtics/2019/02/boston-celtics-gordon-hayward-is-feeling-his-athleticism-slowly-starting-to-come-back.html




Boston Celtics’ Gordon Hayward is feeling his athleticism “slowly starting to come back”



Updated Feb 1, 9:38 PM; Posted Feb 1, 9:38 PM




Boston Celtics forward Gordon Hayward (20) drives to the basket against New York Knicks center Enes Kanter (00) during the second half of an NBA basketball game Friday, Feb. 1, 2019, at Madison Square Garden in New York. The Celtics won 113-99. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer) (Mary Altaffer)




By John Karalis | JKaralis@masslive.com



“It is what it is.”

Gordon Hayward said that twice after answering questions about his recovery, clearly trying to toe the line between explaining, again, how his recovery is going and sounding like he’s trying to make an excuse.

An easy excuse is there for him if he wants it, but he rarely discusses the second surgery that stole his summer. Recovering from the horrific injury that broke and dislocated his ankle was bad enough, but the surgery to remove the plate and screws which originally held the ankle in place came at a critical time in his recovery.

“I think ideally I would have been able to play five-on-five all summer, but I wasn’t able to do that,” Hayward told MassLive after the Boston Celtics win over the New York Knicks. “So I didn’t start playing five-on-five until end of September. Definitely was something I had to adjust to, and so I basically was kinda working my way back at the beginning of the season. But, it is what it is.”

The end of September is the beginning of the preseason, putting Hayward in the unenviable position of trying to learn his teammates while re-learning who he himself was at that point.

“It’s completely different than playing in the summer when you can just kind of play freely and get your swag back, different things like that," he said. “You’re feeling good and confident versus doing it at the beginning of the year. But, it is what it is.”


Hayward seems to be feeling good and confident lately, or at least “better” and “more confident” than he has in the past. His cutting dunk in traffic against the Charlotte Hornets seems to have a touch more athleticism than other dunks in the past. Against the Knicks, he rose with a little added oomph to catch a Terry Rozier lob.

“Athleticism!" Marcus Smart said when he was asked what he noticed about Hayward’s game. "I’ve seen it. It was good to see him happy, see him smiling out there and kind of getting his legs back under him.”

“I just thought he was really good on both ends," Brad Stevens told reporters after the game. "He played strong, he played physical, he played with force. I thought each of the last two games he’s looked like that. So he had the couple of games that I think obviously he didn’t play as well as (he wanted to). But for the most part in this stretch he’s been really reliable and does what he does.”

Doing the math could have predicted this uptick in athleticism. Instead of playing full-court basketball at the end of May, he began at the end of September, which is a four-month setback. Four months from the end of September is the end of January, which means Hayward is only today getting himself to where he’d hoped to be.


Hayward’s teammates see the flashes in practice, but it hasn’t really started to translate to games until recently. His teammates have pushed him in the past, and they continue to keep up the support as he maybe starts to turn a corner.

“We just want it to translate over into games and have that same confidence and it starts with us just giving him support, making sure he knows we’re there for him,” Kyrie Irving said after the game. “Seeing him get up like that, we all get hyped. That’s the G-Hayward we know him to be, and we want him to continue to get better. It’s a lot of pressure on him this season, being around a lot of good players on this team and trying to fit in and fit in a role. I just appreciate how resilient he is and just his focus. He could have easily wallowed in a stretch of games and this and that but he keeps coming back and he keeps wanting to get better, so I appreciate that.”

Hayward is a work in progress. There have been prolonged stretches of struggles and apparent stagnation in his recovery and there may be more down the line. There is always the underlying fear that each step forward might be the last one he makes, leaving Boston with a $30 million role player.


Then there are nights like this, when Hayward sees all the work he puts in every day to continue to strengthen his ankle pay off. There are flashes of his super-athletic past where he glides through the air and throws down a dunk with the same ease he had before becoming a Celtic.

The only way to get where he wants to go is to keep taking steps forward. Each one, he hopes, gets him one step closer to reclaiming that athleticism that helped make him an All-Star.

“Yeah, it’s slowly starting to come back, I think” he says.

It is what it is.


bob



.

I give him credit, with all the games divas like Kawhi and Butler take off, he plays every game pretty much and wants to play/contribute. That was a great fast dunk last night, if he gets it going by playoff time, we could be so rolling with depth attacking in waves....fuck AD.

cowens/oldschool wrote:I give him credit, with all the games divas like Kawhi and Butler take off, he plays every game pretty much and wants to play/contribute. That was a great fast dunk last night, if he gets it going by playoff time, we could be so rolling with depth attacking in waves....fuck AD.

Cow,

I didn't watch him a lot in Utah but he seems like a very deliberate player here. I don't know if that's the loss of athleticism or just who he is, but that's what I'm seeing. I'm all in favor of deliberate players, as long as it doesn't translate into overthinking. He sees the floor very well.

What I'm liking about Hayward, recently, is that he's averaging as many offensive rebounds/minute as he did in his rookie year, which had been his previous high. You know how much I love offensive rebounding. In fact, his total rebounds/minute are at career highs. His steals/minute are tied with his 2nd best year, when he was 23 years old. We all know his scoring is off, but other parts of his game have come back and are doing well.

What I need from him is consistency. Whatever you got, Gordon, let's see it night-in-and-night-out. Right now he's Jeff Green Lite. The advantage he has over Green is that he isn't an unreliable starter, he's an unreliable bench player (like Rozier and others too). The disadvantage is that he's a max $ player.


bob



.

Bob I did watch him some, as you know I was pushing for us to draft Gobert, who did we end up with that year? Anyway as I was watching Jazz to see how well Gobert was doing, noticed GH too, he had a very well rounded game, could score at all 3 levels, not uber athletic, but athletic enough, strong enough, skilled enough and the Jazz first primary scorer. I remember one big game where GH was scoring very well against us, then in 4th, our defensive stopper that year, Avery Bradley came on and shut him down with a big game saving block!!

Another thing in this article that I forgot about was his second surgery.  Any surgery sets your full return to form back and when you haven't played basketball for 6-8 months before your 2nd one you are going to be really, really rusty.

See me in April.


bob


..

Cow, to get Olynyc 13 we passed up Antetokoumpo at 15 and Gobert at 27.
TheHat

TheHat wrote:Cow, to get Olynyc 13 we passed up Antetokoumpo at 15 and Gobert at 27.
TheHat

Really, I know Heckler liked and defended girlie man KO a lot, I only liked his hair....