Former Boston Celtics power forward Antoine Walker likes what he’s been seeing from his old team in the Eastern Conference Semifinals.
The Celtics are facing off with the Toronto Raptors in Game 7 of their Eastern Conference Semifinals series with the defending champions this evening, and Employee No. 8 admits he’s pleasantly surprised by the Celtics’ play thus far, even considering the near misses.
“I love the series,” Walker said to Heavy.com’s Brandon “Scoop B” Robinson on a recent “Heavy Live With Scoop B Show” podcast interview with the former Boston big man. “The Celtics are doing much better than I thought.”
“I thought that they were going to have problems; I didn’t know how healthy Kemba Walker was and I thought you know, he was not 100% and I’m not sure where he’s at but, he’s playing pretty good,” added Walker.
“I was worried about him, I thought that they were going to miss Gordon [Hayward]; when you take 17.5 points out [of] your lineup, you usually miss that. I know the Celtics have three guys that can score 20 points but I thought that they would miss Gordon a little bit. And I worried about the size of the Celtics. I didn’t know Robert Williams who is playing great would play as good as he’s been playing. I worried about him a little bit, but they’ve surprised me.”
“They’ve played some terrific basketball,” observed the former Celtic forward.
He’s not surprised the Raptors have hung around in the series, however.
KG, Tommy Heinsohn and Bob Cousy all call it for the Celtics in Game 7 https://t.co/nzTwkXvUox
— The Celtics Wire (@TheCelticsWire) September 11, 2020
“One thing you got to understand about Toronto is Toronto is a veteran team,” explained Walker. “They won last year — that group has been in some battles.”
“They’re playoff tough now and they play together. It’s a hard team to prepare for because they really don’t have a star. I think Kyle Lowry is a very, very good player. Pascal Siakam could be a good player in this league where he can be considered one of the elites; he’s not there yet. I know he made the All-Star team, but he’s not there yet.
On any given night Fred VanVleet could be their best player. But I thought that their size would give the Celtics problems; Gasol and Serge Ibaka would give them some problems inside and the Celtics have handled them really, really well.”
Walker correctly predicted the series would go to seven games, and is (perhaps obviously) rooting for Boston to win it all as his Celtics alumni Kevin Garnett, Bob Cousy and Tommy Heinsohn are.
And despite — or perhaps because — of all the intensity and close contests in several of the games of the series so far, it’s been a “great series” to the former Boston forward.
We’re inclined to agree.
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