It Took One Practice For Nikola Vucevic To Get Comfortable And Bury His Former Team

BOSTON — It's amazing what one practice can do for a new guy.

Nikola Vucevic, facing his old team in a revenge game after his trade to Boston (can it be called a revenge game if the guy getting traded was cool with it?), put to use some of the fine-tuning from this week’s practice to help bury the Bulls in Boston.

“It helped a lot,” Vucevic said after the win. “Finally having some time to go through stuff. A little more detail, more reps—that always helps … it was a good step forward.”

Vucevic had everything on display on Wednesday night. The screens, the shots, the passes, the defense—all of it was there and looking sharper than his first two games after the trade.

“His pick-and-roll positioning defensively was good, really good,” Joe Mazzulla said. “Offensively, the reads were good - the spacing, understanding where he is, the early offense reads, offensive execution—he just felt much more comfortable out there … he values the details and wants to get it right. So he put a lot of preparation into it and looked much better.”

Help from a familiar face

It’s been a bit of a crash course at Celtics University for Vucevic. He’s been given a lot to digest in a short amount of time, but luckily for him, he has an old teammate he can lean on in Boston.

“Amile Jefferson,” Vucevic said. Jefferson played in Orlando in the 2018-19 and 2019-20 seasons, and is now an assistant coach with the Celtics. “I’ve known him for a long time, and he’s a great guy. So that helped me a little bit because it was a familiar face, somebody I’ve known. So that helped a lot. It helped make me a little more comfortable.”

Jefferson has been walking Vucevic through the ins and outs of what Boston does. The pair went to dinner last week, and Jefferson filled Vucevic in on everything from coverages and unique language to the expectations from Mazzulla and the team culture. Jefferson is a familiar face in a sea of confusion that is typical in the aftermath of a trade.

“Joe is very detailed,” Vucevic said. “He sees something that the defense maybe is doing, or when the other team is on offense, [what] they try to run, and Joe just switches up matchups, switches up defenses … adjustments in the moment. He’s big into that.”

Digesting the lessons

Vucevic says he’s looking forward to the All-Star break so he can stop his head from spinning after the trade. The break will let Vucevic regroup, refresh, and return with a better sense of everything Mazzulla and the Celtics have been throwing at him.

Until all that happens, Vucevic will lean on 15 years of NBA experience to just do what feels right on the floor. Basketball strategy can get insanely complicated, but the game is still a simple one. When the shot is open, take it. When a teammate is open, pass him the ball.

“I love him. It's great,” Jordan Walsh said. “Every time he catches the ball, I’m just cutting, and he's looking every time. So it's great. It’s a way to kind of get involved in the offense without having the ball in your hands. It's super good to have a guy to have to facilitate that and also stretch the floor and do so many things.”

The instincts will carry him for a while, and the team culture will help prop him up between now and whenever things become second nature. What we saw Wednesday night showed what 15 years of built-up basketball IQ, sprinkled with a bit of hands-on instruction, looks like. Those 15 years also bring a level of professionalism that gives Mazzulla the confidence that the rest will come around.

“He prepares,” Mazzulla said. “I don't know what he does at home. He's got a wife and kids, so I hope he's spending time with them, but he cares about the details, he cares about wanting to get it right, and he wants to win. So I trust the process of his preparation.”