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00:05 Hey, Bobby Manning here. Welcome to a practice edition of the Garden Report.
00:11 Training camp getting underway today in full double session for the Celtics here.
00:16 And the first opportunity with coaching staff, with Joe Mazzuola, with the whole operation in place
00:22 to figure out how they're going to use Chris Staffs for Zingas.
00:25 And that becomes my biggest question going into camp, among many.
00:31 How they'll use him defensively now that Robert Williams isn't there.
00:35 I think Rob projected the start next to him.
00:38 Now they'll probably go smaller most of the time here, even if they do start games with double big.
00:43 So poor Zingas today talking about what he's preparing for.
00:47 And as Mazzuola said, it's a little bit of everything.
00:51 It could go in a bunch of different directions here. So he's trying out all the different coverages,
00:55 all the different positions on the floor. Here's what he had to say about his role defensively.
01:00 You talked a little bit about playing center yesterday.
01:02 Is that kind of how you're focusing on now in training camp, defensively with the coverages and all that?
01:07 Yeah, everything. You need to know how to play every position defensively almost.
01:13 There's going to be switches, there's going to be mismatches.
01:16 And yeah, I have to be able to be put in any situation and be able to understand what we need to do.
01:25 And offensively, yeah, we'll figure it out with the personnel we have.
01:31 What's the most effective way for us to play?
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01:50 So he's confident it's going to work out. Talked as well about getting used to a new team.
02:00 Said it took him a little bit while in Dallas to get used to his team.
02:05 Washington happened more smoothly, especially the second season with the Wizards.
02:09 After spending some time with the Latvia national team at Eurobasket.
02:12 This year he said a little different, even though he had that training camp with Latvia.
02:16 Missed the entire tournament with the foot injury.
02:19 And now part of that six week shutdown and him coming back a week or two ago
02:23 is getting back into shape and getting back into the rhythm of things.
02:26 So that could impact his preparation process as he begins to play for a fourth team here.
02:32 And one of the things I mentioned after the trade is that this is going to be the first time he's the third option on a team.
02:39 More of a role player, third option.
02:42 Definitely a huge scoring threat and he said today the offense will come easily, he thinks.
02:47 They'll figure that out pretty smoothly given the amount of good players that they have here.
02:52 But does he find different spots on the floor to score from?
02:57 Is he consistently involved in those pick and rolls, especially if Al Horfitz is out there to start games with him?
03:02 And then defensively, those are the bigger questions.
03:06 Can he get up in the pick and roll?
03:09 Can they keep him back close to the basket where he said yesterday he prefers to play on the defensive side of things?
03:15 That's all a little tougher if he's going to be the only center on the floor.
03:18 But he said he's ready to do that.
03:20 There aren't many bruising post-up fives left in the game now.
03:24 He mentioned Joel Embiid and Nikola Jokic as two of the very few guys left with that ability.
03:29 And even though they do have Horfitz on hand to guard those kind of guys,
03:32 I'm sure there will be times, specifically if Horfitz is sitting out certain games, where he'll have to do that.
03:38 So we're all anxious to see what this looks like.
03:41 It should go well. He's so skilled. He's so versatile.
03:44 He's huge standing in front of him.
03:47 Today it was like standing in front of a mountain.
03:50 His height and the arms just stretching out for miles.
03:54 It was impressive. He's an impressive player.
03:56 We didn't get to see him actually practice or shoot around out there today.
04:00 So hopefully we'll see that tomorrow.
04:02 And we'll have practices all week to hopefully get a glimpse of what Porzingis looks like.
04:06 And then a preseason game on Sunday.
04:08 For now, there's a practice edition of the Garden Report.
04:10 Talked a little bit of scheme and game plan with Joe Mazzuola today as well.
04:13 So we'll get to that.
04:15 And for now, that's all on Porzingis and this practice edition of the Garden Report.
04:19 I'm Bobby Manning here from Auerbach Center.
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05:26 [music]
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