The Celtics lost in their second summer league game against the Spurs Monday, 61-53. Though the Spurs are the defending champions, their summer league crew is mostly rookies and journeymen battling for a spot on the best team in the NBA. The Celtics led most of the way, however in the end, The Spurs were able to pull it off after some costly turnovers by the C's. Jackie Butler finished with 16 points and 12 board for the Spurs, and was most definitely the player of the game. However, it is just summer league, and its also Jackie Butler. For the Celtics, Glen Davis made some noise inside with 12 points and 9 rebounds. He may be a little short, but he moves around well down low and knows how to score. He can really make an impact for the team this year.
The biggest story coming out of the game though was the signing of Forward Brandon Wallace. Wallace is an athletic, defensive-minded forward who went undrafted out of South Carolina. Though he didn't have the best game yesterday, the Celtics have been impressed by him enough to sign him to the team. Wallace may provide the Celtics with one of their biggest needs: Defense on the inside. However, just because this is his forte doesn't necessarily mean he's ready to make an impact in the NBA. Still, I like the signing and I'm very curious to see what he can do for us. He even got to show off his jump shot a couple times in the game which is always a plus.
Another player talked about much during the game was Allan Ray. He's not having the greatest summer league so far, but the commentators mentioned that he's most definitely an NBA player. I would agree with this statment, but I feel that there really isn't much room on the Celtics for him, with Ray Allen, Tony Allen, and Gerald Green all looking for minutes at the 2. Gerald can play the 3, but that still doesn't leave a lot of minutes for Ray. My hope is that he has a good summer league and thus can maybe be used in some type of trade. As Ainge had previously mentioned, he isn't done making trades. If Allan Ray shows that he's ready to play some serious NBA minutes, he could be a good fit for a team looking for some depth at the two. On the flipside, we could always look to trade Tony Allen and have Allan Ray back up Ray Allen. This might be too much for Tommy Heinsohn to handle though.
No matter what happens I think the Celtics will look to make some kind of deal, most likely for that defensive presence on the inside. While Brandon Wallace shows potential in that sense, he won't be ready to step up for a while and it seems the Celtics want to win some games soon. A player like Marcus Camby or Andrei Kirelenko would be a great fit, but I'm not sure what it will take to get this kind of deal to happen. I'm not a GM.
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