Blake Griffin, certified alley-oop aficionado, saw the sequence unfolding and was out of his seat before Robert Williams III even left the ground.
Marcus Smart’s lob was still fluttering towards the basket but Griffin and much of the Boston bench were already standing with arms up in celebration by the time Williams III caught the ball above the rim and delivered a powerful two-handed slam for his first basket of the 2022-23 season.
In that moment, everything was right with the world.
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SIGN UP HERE Well, not everything. The Celtics were about to turn in one of their biggest duds of the season. Boston got outmuscled and outhustled by the perpetually lottery-bound Orlando Magic in a game so frustrating that mild-mannered Al Horford got ejected for elbowing Mo Wagner below the belt.
Boston lost for the third time in four games with their only win being an improbable late-game rally against the lowly Lakers to cap a six-game road trip.
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The return of Williams III was a much-needed distraction to Boston’s woes. This is a not a team that celebrates process over results so the defeat left a bitter taste in their mouths, but Williams III’s 17 minutes, 34 seconds of floor time offered a tantalizing glimpse of a more promising future.
The Garden delivered a standing ovation when Williams III, 84 days removed from an unexpected second surgery on his ailing left knee, checked in for the first time this season. He got whistled for a moving screen just seconds into his first shift and referees bailed him out on a second foul on the ensuing possession by assigning it to Horford.
But then came the dunk and Williams III settled in.
"I think I just needed to catch a lob and dunk to be honest,” he said. "It was just like a sense of calm.”
How appropriate that Time Lord’s calm was something that sent the Garden into a frenzy. It was also a reminder of what the Celtics have so dearly missed.
Williams admitted he was gassed after his first four-minute stint. He picked up three fouls in that span and looked like he might foul out in six minutes of play. Instead, he turned in his best minutes of the night in the third quarter, injecting needed energy on a night were little else went right for his teammates.
A loud putback of a Jaylen Brown missed layup had the Celtics within 10 with 6:15 to go in the third. A "Time Lord Returns" hype video ran on the JumboTron a short time later and Williams III followed by throwing down a lob from Jayson Tatum in transition in the aftermath.
The Celtics ranked 29th in the NBA in dunks entering Friday’s game but are unlikely to stay in the basement much longer. Williams III had four dunks overall in his debut and was one of the few things that worked offensively on a night the Celtics missed a whole bunch of long-distance attempts.
Defensively, Williams III was a step slow on scrambling out to shooters, who were able to get off 3-point attempts that skimmed his fingertips. He did deliver one loud block on Mo Bamba. NBA advanced tracking had Magic players shooting just 2 of 8 against him when Williams III was the primary defender.
As Williams III and interim coach Joe Mazzulla were crisscrossing from the podium at their postgame press conferences, Mazzulla asked Williams III if he was doing OK after his debut. It was probably the 1,000th time that day that Williams III had been asked how he was feeling.
Williams III smiled and assured his coach he was doing just fine.
"Felt good, felt great actually,” Williams III said soon after at the podium. "We f---ing lost but we need to bounce back from that."
Joe Mazzulla explains his unique timeout strategy
The loss did not sit well with Boston, and Malcolm Brogdon was emphatic that the team couldn’t use the long road trip it was coming off as an excuse. But Williams III offered a silver lining for a team that doesn’t often do silver linings.
"I think [Williams III] was really the only thing that got the fans going tonight,” said Brogdon. "I thought he played great for his first game back and he's gonna be huge for us.”
Echoed Tatum: “I’m happy for him. He played well. I’m glad he’s back healthy and back with the team. That’s a plus tonight to have him back.”
Reintegrating Williams III is going to be a bumpy process at times and Mazzulla must figure out how to best mix and match his full-strength personnel. It has to be frustrating that, on the night they got back an All-Defense presence, the Celtics gave up 117 points to the Magic, but Boston’s best hope of rekindling its top-ranked defense from last season is a Time Lord infusion.
There’s simply a different energy with Williams III on the floor. The Celtics are so much more dynamic on both ends. His dunks and blocks are Dunkin’ turbo shots to a team that showed Friday night that it can’t always rely on 3-point shooting and must ratchet up the intensity on the defensive end.
There were signs throughout the arena celebrating Williams III’s return. A young fan near the Boston bench sported a No. 44 jersey. This reporter, long having declared his Timelord bias, spent the night with a perpetual grin.
The result wasn’t ideal. But Williams III’s return offers a pathway to the Celtics reaching their full potential. The early returns for this Boston team have been encouraging -- this most recent stretch notwithstanding -- but the Celtics’ ceiling now goes as high as Williams III can leap now that he’s back on the court.
