There’s no point to having a good nickname if you never do things worth seeing it in print, but Boston Celtics second-year center Robert Williams III more than earned his “Time Lord” nickname in Wednesday’s blowout win over the Brooklyn Nets.
Scoring a career-high 18 points on a perfect 7-of-7 shooting along with 5 rebounds, 3 blocks and a steal in just 19 minutes of playing time, Williams looked every bit the capable manipulator of space-time once he shook off some early rust.
“I need to get better conditioning-wise, getting the scorers open with my screens, getting the shooters open with screens,” offered Williams on assessing his breakout performance after the game, “and whenever I do get a chance to get put in with the first group, just make sure I’m doing whatever I can to bring energy to them.”
While Time Lord only had a partial overlap with some of the starters against the Nets, he was doing a lot of that — and more.
Rob Williams scored a career-high 18 points on a perfect 7-of-7 shooting (4-4 FT)
It's the third time in his NBA career he's scored at least 10 points on 100.0% shooting (all this season)
— Celtics Stats (@celtics_stats) August 6, 2020
Away-from-the-basket jumpers at the elbow, crisp passes to open shooters, solid positioning on defense, and creating rim-running options for his teammates is exactly the sort of boost off the bench this team needed.
Whether Williams can keep producing at this level against more talented opponents remains to be seen, but even if the Texas A&M product only sees the floor against second units in the postseason, he’ll be a hugely important part of the rotation going forward.
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