Scouting Amari Williams: Breaking down the Boston Celtics rookie's first start

Amari Williams earned the first start of his young NBA career after giving Boston someimportant clutch minutes in Brooklyn. The almost 24-year-old big (his birthday is on Wednesday) has been playing well for the Maine Celtics in the G League, averaging 17.3 points, 11.8 rebounds, and 4.4 assists. His time in the NBA has been limited, though, with just 10 appearances so far.

The Brooklyn game was the second time this season that he’d shown flashes of potential. He played a solid 15 minutes against Detroit in late November, but it’s been mostly garbage time for him so far at the NBA level.

And that's fine for a rookie, two-way guy. At the same time, being an older player shortens the developmental leash a little bit. If he’s going to be part of Boston’s future big-man rotation, he has to start at least showing some signs of growth. That doesn’t have to come at the NBA level yet, but it would be nice to see.

So with that, let’s take a look at his first start and break the whole thing down, scout-style. Here’s the game film:

Instead of breaking down to a million different clips, we’ll just go with the time stamps so can watch and follow along.

:03 - Coby White drives and Williams anticipates a kick out to the corner. I don’t think his positioning is great and I don’t think the coaches do either, because we’ll see a clip later on a drive where he is much more disciplined.

It’s actually not a bad reaction, it’s just that he can do more to impact the ball and cause a turnover, which is what the Celtics want. Coby White had already spun to that side of the floor, and the Celtics are coached to jump spin moves like that. Obviously, Derrick White was able to recover and force a pass, but that's still a play where Williams needs to hang in a second more and then be ready to recover out to the shooter.

Once the shot is up, though, he does a good job boxing out, which allows White to snag the rebound. If he had just turned and looked, that would have been a second chance for the Bulls, so good job identifying the rebounder and getting a body on him.

:12 - Pick-and-roll with Derrick White. I didn’t like this play, but I think the chemistry and timing of a pick-and-roll is tough with a new big. I think Williams hung in the pick too long and he was tentative on his roll. He was never a threat for a lob. But this could simply be because of the lack of reps with White. When Neemias Queta sets that screen, he’s out of it quickly and centers have to worry about him at the rim, which takes some of the defensive pressure off White when he wants to go for a floater.

Also, Queta looks like he wants the ball when he comes out of a screen.

What a find by Derrick White to Neemias Queta pic.twitter.com/GyBYF3G3Xv
— Danielle Hobeika (@DanielleHobeika) January 25, 2026

Williams was kind of meandering, which will end up being one of the final takeaways from all of this.

:19 - Nice screen to free up Sam Hauser. He might have gotten away with a little extra with the hip. That might be called an illegal screen, especially if the guy getting screened savvy and takes a dive, but he made the defender take a longer route and that freed up Hauser.

:26 - Decent defense but, again, I want to see him more active. I want him to be a little more “springy,” if that makes sense … just a half second quicker and sharper with his movements. But I admit I’m being nit-picky there, but I think the quicker bursts would have led to a little better contest of the shot. What I don’t like is that he fell behind Patrick Williams and put himself in position to give up an offensive rebound. Amari was trying to leak out for a fast break but he has to understand his team isn’t the best at securing those and he has to hang back and help.

:42 - Decent screen, then he’s out of the play. If I’m scouting Williams here, I’m writing a note to myself to see if we can develop this kid’s jumper because that's a pick-and-pop opportunity that's just not available because of Williams skill set. I’m just throwing it out there because if he can develop a jumper in that spot, it’ll make him more dangerous. His NBA skill is actually his passing, and a jumper would create so many passing lanes for him.

Also, I’m not thrilled with his rebounding instincts. He doesn’t have a nose for rebounds. He gets them in the G League, but I think it’s more of a size thing at that level. I don’t see him reading shots and fighting for angles.

:51 - This one would bother me as a coach. Derrick White throws the long pass to Jaylen Brown, who, for some reason, doesn’t go up with it right away. At about the time Brown catches the ball, Williams is at the right horn of the Bulls logo. Three full seconds go by and there's no sign of Williams in the picture. He finally shows up after nearly five seconds.

Meanwhile, Brown has decided he isn’t going up with it. Look at all the room Williams had to catch a pass if he had run hard.

Celtics vs. Bulls — Broadcast screen shot

Pardon me as I break into my coach voice … ahem …

‘Do you want the ball or not, kid? I don’t care if you thought Jaylen was going to finish it. What if he got blocked? What if he got fouled and they didn’t call it? What if he just missed it? You’re a rookie who doesn’t play, so why aren’t you going out there and showing us how much of mistake that is? Why aren’t you hustling every second you’re out there to wow us with an effort play that doesn’t make us want to sub you out? ‘

… and … scene …

This play bothers me a lot. The last thing a player should want is to be branded as not having enough fire. And knowing Joe Mazzulla, that play probably drove him crazy too. He’s lucky they scored on it.

1:15 - Williams is clearly lost, which is understandable. You can see at 1:21 that Sam Hauser is directing him on where to be defensively. My biggest criticism here is that his hands are by his side. This pass should be impossible:

And yet, that's the pass that gets made. High hands on defense is basic stuff, especially when you don’t know what you’re doing out there. I get that this is a little bit of an unfair situation, but Williams should be making himself as big as possible out there to at least announce his presence and be a deterrent. That's three points for Chicago on a basic mistake.

1:29 - He sets a good screen, short rolls, and gets the ball. All good stuff. He makes a bit of a mechanical pass to the corner without reading the defense, but it’s a good idea. A bounce pass would have gotten through. Or maybe a fake and swing to Payton Pritchard. In time, the game will slow down for him and he’ll learn how to read the defense better and swing it to Hauser on the left side for a shot. This is less a mistake and more of a teaching moment for him. Making this play comes with time, reps, and coaching.

1:38 - Nice screen for Pritchard. He got a screen assist for that.

1:44 - Another good screen that helps put the defender on Pritchard’s hip. From there Pritchard is in control and he finds Derrick White, who relocated nicely, for a wide-open look. The screening has been solid. There is obvious refining to do in the timing and spacing, but that's a reps and coaching thing. The screens have been good, though, which is important.

1:55 - I’d like to see him look less tentative. Brown pulls from way out, and that's partly because Williams’ is occupying two guys with a screen. Chicago is conceding that shot. They don’t care if Brown pulls from that deep.

2:05 - Good pin-down screen but them knocking heads tough. It threw the whole timing off. That was a roll opportunity for Williams. Hard to tell if had the opportunity to shake that off quicker and get to his spot or not. Just an unfortunate circumstance.

From there, though, I would have loved to see him get into the right dunker spot rather than the right block.

That would have forced the defense to make a choice, either go up to Pritchard, in which case he could have dumped if off to Williams, or stay with Williams and give Pritchard more room to operate. Again, this is a time/reps/coaching thing. He’s doing no good on the right block because he’s just allowing a defender to be in help AND defend him. It’s poor spacing, and it contributes to the turnover.

2:24 - The screening isn’t great here. He misses a pin-down, so Hauser has to ad lib. Then the hand off with Pritchard is way off. And then he’s on the right block again instead of in the dunker spot, but Brown was probably taking that shot regardless. On the plus side, he’s fighting for the rebound well and he forces a foul with his effort. That's good. I’m willing to brush past the screens as just a chemistry thing and reward him in the film session by praising his effort there.

2:44 - Pick-and-roll with Anfernee Simons, and it should have worked. I’m going to go back to high school and say I wish he’d opened up on the roll instead of turned his back to Simons. I think pivoting open with his chest to Simons would have given him the extra split second to spot the ball and catch the pass.

This is one of those little details that has gotten lost over the years. If a ball handler goes past your right shoulder on the screen, then that shoulder should be what opens up, with a pivot on your left foot and a step with your right, so you can see the player and the ball the entire time. If he’d done that, I think that pass gets through.

It is, also, a good defensive play, and maybe that steal happens no matter what. It’s tough because a swing to Brown in the right corner was right there.

2:58 - This goes back to the very first bullet point. Go back to the :03 mark and look at how Williams reacts and compare it to this, where Williams is in a good defensive position, helping stop the drive, but also loaded up to get out to the corner.

This is the “springy” guy I’m looking for. Look at him with his knees bent and ready to move. Look at his arms out. Look at how he’s jab-stepping to try to bait the ball handler into the pass so he can get out to the corner and make the Bulls reset the play.

You can tell the coaches got to him at halftime and showed him what he’d been doing. This is a much more engaged and active Williams. The Bulls got the bucket here, but Williams was much better.

3:09 - Good screen, the short roll makes the defenders think he’s a threat, and it allowed Brown to fill in the gap behind him for an open shot.

3:20 - Clear miscommunication. It looks like Jordan Walsh’s fault, but someone there needs to take that initiative to say something. That was two full seconds of staring at Isaac Okoro as he lined up a warmup three-pointer.

3:31 - It’s a nice block (maybe a goaltend, but they didn’t call it). It’s a good read, good positioning, and a nice play.

3:43 - Good job stepping over to cut off the drive. I think Derrick White should have passed him off and broke to the corner to get a better contest on the shot. I'm not sure what the coverage was supposed to be on that play, though, and the chemistry isn’t there with these guys either, so White didn’t know what to expect behind them. That part has to be on Williams to communicate.

That's one of the major responsibilities for a center. He’s the guy who sees everything. So he needs to make sure White knows what’s happening.

4:05 - FINALLY Williams is in a dunker spot, and we get to see another impact of being in the right spot. Watch Williams on the baseline, in the left dunker spot. He’s waiting to be an outlet for Simons or Brown, but neither gets into the paint. So Williams ducks in and is suddenly in offensive rebounding position.

His positioning occupies Nikola Vucevic, which allows Derrick White to get the long rebound. The Basketball Gods reward Williams by leaving him open for White to make a great tip pass of the rebound and give Williams the dunk.

Spacing is so important, and it can show up in so many positive ways when it’s right. Again, it looks like the coaches got to him with some film at halftime because these corrections came in the third quarter.

The late corrections are very encouraging, and those are where I’m hanging my hat when I say I see real NBA potential in Williams. He made mistakes, he was shown he mistakes, and he corrected them the next chance he got. That's great coaching and coachability. In the end, fixing correctable errors will get him another chance at some point.

However, Williams seems to have a bad habit of retreating into a shell when he doesn’t know what’s going on. He’s doing so much thinking on the floor that it slows him down, makes him very tentative, and he loses his fundamentals. I'm certainly not knocking him for not knowing where to be at times, but I am knocking him for being passive when that's happening.

Contrast that with Hugo Gonzalez, Jordan Walsh, or Josh Minott, all of whom have brought great energy to stints. That third quarter play where he jab-stepped and stopped a drive is a great sign of his ability to be engaged and active. If nothing else, playing with good energy, even when a little bit lost, will make up for some of the confusion.

He’s shown some of that in Maine. There are positives in his play in Chicago, and I am encouraged by his ability to quickly adjust when coached. He’s a solid player who should improve. I think he can work his way into the mix for a full roster spot next season.