Practice Notes: Crawford and Brooks leave; Bradley banged up
As previously reported, Jordan Crawford will not be traveling with the Celtics on Wednesday to play the New York Knicks in Providence. Boston will potentially be down another guard as MarShon Brooks was excused from practice. Brooks developed a headache during practice that was bad enough for head trainer Ed Lacerte to recommend he take the rest of the day off.
After practice guard Avery Bradley was seen wearing a a heavy wrap on his left hand, but not to worry. He injured his index finger during camp and has been taking precautionary measures throughout preseason. Bradley played more minutes than any other member of the Celtics in the preseason opener against Toronto and is expected to put in a full workday tomorrow night against the Knicks. Given his advanced workload due to the abscesnce of Rajon Rondo, Jordan Crawford, and potentially MarShon Brooks, I'm ok if he wants to wrap himself in bubble wrap until game time.
With sudden availability at the guard position on the Celtics, the door is open for rookie Phil Pressey to see increased playing time. Pressey reportedly was the last player to leave the court Tuesday after an additional half-hour shooting session. Knowing that playing time comes sparingly to rookies in his position, he is ready to showcase what Danny Ainge and the Celtics front office see in him.
"In college, I played 35-40 minutes per game, so I tended to back off guys a little bit," he said. "I’m going to try to come out here and pressure guys like I did -- like my freshman year [at Missouri] I did that a lot. I'm going to try to come out here and try to bring it to the game tomorrow."
Going head to head with Bradley and Crawford every day in practice seems to have Pressey prepped and ready for in game challenges this week.
"The good thing about those guys, they bring it every day, so in practice we are competing," he said. "It’s tough out there. You can’t take a play off. Jordan wants to compete every single play and win every single drill. We’re going at it, the same thing with Avery. Those guys are just helping me get better and the harder we practice, the easier games are going to be."
After practice, head coach Brad Stevens addressed the media on all topics:
On Brooks:
"MarShon got a headache in the middle of practice. He met with [trainer] Ed [Lacerte], and Ed thought it was best that he go home. I don’t know [the prognosis] long term, but he was here at the start [of practice]."
On Bradley:
"[Bradley] hasn't said a word about it to me," Stevens said. "He hasn't found it to be debilitating, so I think he's playing through whatever pain he's got. I know he had an X-ray and everything was negative last week."
On Pressey:
"You'll see a lot more of Phil Pressey, which is good," Stevens said. "I'm really looking forward to that. I think he's done a great job. I knew that prior to last night's game. That's why I didn’t play Phil last night and played Jordan a couple more minutes. So that was the point behind that. We'll still mix and match a little bit, but I thought that we did find some good combinations."
Source: Chris Forsberg, ESPN Boston
Follow Padraic O'Connor on Twitter @padraic_oconnor
