The Celtics opened their 2024-25 title defense (or rather, their 2024-25 attack of a new goal, as Joe Mazzulla would prefer to put it) with a 107-103 preseason victory in Abu Dhabi over the Nuggets.
Here are the takeaways.
1. Friday’s contest was precisely what you would expect from a game on October 4 between two teams who have ambitions of playing deep into June.
The starters played limited minutes at a relatively low level of intensity – so low, in fact, that Nuggets star Jamal Murray (who played 15 minutes in the first half) was already wearing street clothes late in the fourth quarter.