James Young, Boston's second-year wing, has struggled mightily throughout this brief NBA career. There have been constant trips down to the D-League, where Young's dominated inferior competition.
But on the NBA stage he hasn't really made an imprint. That's all changed over the Celtics' past four games, where Young has averagee over 17 minutes per contest and is really showing improvement on all parts of his skill-set.
Here's The Boston Globe with more on Young's recent breakout:
Young's offense will come. He's a very gifted shooter who one day will provide the spacing Boston's system needs. But it's his defense over the past week that's really turning heads.
If he doesn't handle himself on that end of the floor then Brad Stevens won't give him minutes.
“He’s doing a lot of little things that probably don’t show up in a box score and your average person might not even notice,” Celtics assistant coach Jay Larranaga said. “He was a 19-year-old coming from college basketball, where NBA concepts are new to all guys. Marcus Smart is probably the only rookie I’ve ever been around that came in with almost the corporate knowledge of how you defend and how important help-side defense is. Most guys grow up just worrying about guarding their own man.”
