Sign up for the Today newsletter
Get everything you need to know to start your day, delivered right to your inbox every morning.
The Celtics will face their division foe in their 5th game at the Las Vegas Summer League. The 76ers played in the Salt Lake City Summer League, coming away with a 1-2 record there. They have a 3-1 record so far in Las Vegas. These two teams last met in Summer League in 2021 when the Celtics won 100-80. In that year, Romeo Langford played for the Celtics and Jaden Springer played for the 76ers.
As always in Summer League, it’s very hard to predict who will start as coaches try to mix and match players and to experiment with different lineups. After being the Celtics best player against the Heat, Jaden Springer sat out next 3 games. After being the Celtics best player against the Lakers, Neemias Queta did not dress for the next 2 games. In their last game, Davison, Peterson, Queta, Ramsey and Springer all sat out.
The Celtics have fielded similar starting lineups in their first 3 games with Davison, Scheierman, and Walsh starting all 3 games. Springer started against the heat and Peterson started against the Lakers. Queta started the first two games. In their 4th game, they started Scheierman, Walsh, and Watson along with House and Tillie. The 76ers have used the same starting line up of Dowtin, McCain, Council, Edwards and Bona in all 4 of their games so far.
D.J. MacLeay is coaching the Celtics Summer League team. The Celtics hired MacLeay in 2021 as a player enhancement coach on Ime Udoka’s staff. In July 2022 he was promoted to assistant coach. He stayed with the Celtics as an assistant after Udoka left. Assistant coach Matt Brase is coaching the 76ers. He has been an assistant with Philadelphia since 2023 but has been an assistant with for various G League teams since 2008. He was the coach of the 2013 GLeague champions. He is also the head coach of Haiti’s National team.
Boston Celtics Roster
Tyler Cook
JD Davison
Tristan Enaruna
Ron Harper, Jr
Jaelen House
Drew Peterson
Neemias Queta
Jahmi’us Ramsey
Baylor Scheierman
Jaden Springer
Killian Tillie
Jordan Walsh
Anton Watson
Head Coach
D.J. MacLeay
Starters Last Game
Jaelen House
Baylor Scheierman
Jordan Walsh
Anton Watson
Killian Tillie
Players to Watch
Anton Watson
Once again, we should keep an eye on Anton Watson. Watson was the 54th pick in the draft and should at least get a 2 way contract but has played well enough for the Celtics to sign him to the 15th roster spot. He rarely makes mistakes and is usually in the right place at the right time, especially on defense. He is a good rebounder, plays good defense and hustles. Against the Mavericks he finished with 14 points, 8 rebounds, 2 assists and 2 blocks while shooting 45.5% from the field and 50% from beyond the arc.
Baylor Scheierman
Scheierman was the Celtics 30th pick in this year’s draft. He is known as a shooter but his performance in the first 3 games proves that he is a versatile player with great court vision. He struggled with his shot in a couple of games, but picked up his defense and played hard in other areas. One of the highlights of the game game against LA was when he dove into the 2nd row to save a ball from going out of bounds. That kind of hustle should earn him playing time. He finished the game against Dallas with 15 points, 5 rebounds, and 2 assists while shooting 62.5% from the field and 50% from beyond the arc.
Jaelen House
Jaelen is the son of Celtics champion and commentator Eddie House. Jaelen House went undrafted in this year’s draft, despite a strong senior season at New Mexico. His quickness and his ability to create shots make him fun to watch. in his first start for the Summer Celtics, he finished with 18 points, 2 rebounds and 9 assists while shooting 36.8% from the field and 28.6% from beyond the arc.
Philadelphia 76ers Roster
Jeff Dowtin
Ricky Council IV
David Jones
Justin Edwards
Jared McCain
RJ Hampton
Keve Aluma
Darius Days
Adem Bona
Tony Bradley
Romeo Langford
Justin Powell
Max Fiedler
Judah Mintz
Jordan Tucker
Jaylen Sims
Head Coach
Matt Brase
Starters Last Game
Jeff Dowtin
Jared McCain
Ricky Council IV
Justin Edwards
Adem Bona
Players to Watch
Ricky Council IV
Council went undrafted in 2023 but was signed by the 76ers to a 2 way contract and played with their GLeague team last season. In April, he was signed to a regular contract. His his last game, he finished with 20 points, 5 rebounds, 2 assists and 3 steals while shooting 50% from the field and 28.6% from beyond the arc.
Jeff Dowtin
Jeff Dowtin went undrafted in 2020 and since then has played for Orlando, Golden State, Milwaukee, Toronto and Philadelphia on their GLeague teams. In his last game for the 76ers in Summer League, he finished with 17 points, 4 rebounds, and 5 assists while shooting 37.5% from the field and 16.7% from beyond the arc.
David Jones
Jones went undrafted out of Memphis and the 76ers have signed him to a 2 way contract. With Memphis, he shot 38% from deep on 6.5 attempts per night. In the 76ers last game, he came off the bench to finish with 15 poionts, 6 rebounds and 1 steal while shooting 50% from the field and 60% from beyond the arc.
Keys to the Game
Defense – Just as defense is the key to every game in the regular season and in the playoffs, it is also the key to winning in the Summer League. In their first game in Las Vegas, the Celtics allowed the Heat to shoot 61.5% from the field and 60% from beyond the arc. Against the Lakers, they clamped down on defense and held the Lakers to 36.4% from the field and 30.8% from beyond the arc. They held the undefeated Hornets to 43% from the field and 28% on threes. They allowed the Mavericks to shoot 50.7% from the field and 40.7% from beyond the arc. The pattern is clear, play defense and win, slack off on defense and lose.
Rebound – Along with defense, rebounding is always a key to winning. The Celtics out-rebounded the Heat 35-29 in their first game. The Celtics out-rebounded the Lakers 38-35. They were out-rebounded 37-39 against the Hornets and out-rebounded the Mavericks 39-36. The Celtics need to continue to crash the boards in this game if they want to get a win.
Improvement – In Summer League, improvement and evaluation are more important than winning. Both coaches are looking for improvement from returning players and they are evaluating all of the players on the roster for possible spots on the roster or 2 way contracts. The Celtics saw improvement in several players in their first 3 games and hopefully will see even more improvement in this game. Jordan Walsh has struggled with his shot in Summer League so far and it would be good to see him have a good game in this one.
X-Factors
Chemistry and Experience
The 76ers have played 3 more games than the Celtics as they played in Salt Lake City. The 76ers have 1 player with 6 years experience, 2 players with 4 years experience (including former Celtic, Romeo Langford), 2 players with 1 year experience and 11 rookies. The Celtics have 1 player with 3 years experience, 4 players with 2 years experience, 1 player with 1 year experience and 7 rookies.
Crime
An MIT professor was shot and killed in Brookline on Monday night.
Brookline police responded a report of a man shot in his home on Gibbs Street, according to the Norfolk County District Attorney’s Office.
Nuno F.G. Loureiro, 47, was transported to a local hospital and was pronounced dead on Tuesday morning, the DA says.
Loureiro was the director of MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center and a professor of nuclear science and engineering and physics. Originally from Portugal, the Portuguese Minister of Foreign Affairs announced his death in a regulatory hearing before the Committee on Foreign Affairs and Portuguese Communities on Tuesday, according to CNN.
“Sadly, I can confirm that Professor Nuno Loureiro, who died early this morning, was a current MIT faculty member in the departments of Nuclear Science & Engineering and Physics, as well as the Director of MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center. Our deepest sympathies are with his family, students, colleagues, and all those who are grieving,” an MIT spokesperson wrote in a statement.
In January, Loureiro was honored as one of nearly 400 scientists and engineers with the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers from former president Joe Biden.
The investigation into the homicide remains ongoing. No further information was released.
Get everything you need to know to start your day, delivered right to your inbox every morning.
A man was hospitalized after being shot Monday night in Brookline, Massachusetts.
The shooting happened on Gibbs Street. There was a large police presence at the scene.
The victim was brought to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. His condition was not known.
Police said the victim was shot three times and grazed by another round.
Authorities did not say if any arrests had been made.
No further information was immediately available.
Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox reported homicides are up nearly 30% this year, as Mayor Michelle Wu continued to tout Boston as the safest major city in the country at a year-end public safety briefing.
Cox said there have been 31 homicides in the city thus far this year, compared to 24 for all of last year, but said that number still reflects a near record-low for the city — and represents a 16% decrease from the city’s five-year average.
“In comparison to last year’s 67-year low in homicide rates in the city’s history, we have had an increase, although we don’t know what the final number will be,” Cox said Monday at the Boston EMS Training Center in West Roxbury. “This year still represents a 16% decrease from our five-year average, and the lowest number in the last 20 years, but for the 67-year low I made mention to.”
The 29.1% uptick in homicides was reported by the police commissioner at an end-of-year public safety briefing that was a more tempered affair than how 2024 police statistics were reported last December.
At last year’s press conference, Cox boasted that the “city has never been safer,” when joining the mayor in rolling out end-of-year crime statistics that featured a record-low number of homicides and shootings.
The number of murders in 2024 “appears to be the lowest since 1957,” and is “by far” the lowest amount since the Boston Police Department began tracking such data in 2007, when there were 68 homicides, Cox said at the time.
Wu, who was gearing up for a reelection campaign at the time, pointed to the data as evidence that Boston is the “safest major city in the country.” She stuck to that same refrain on Monday, despite the uptick in homicides, and a significant spike in shoplifting that was also highlighted by the police commissioner.
“Being a home for everyone means being there, not just during the good times, but all the time,” Wu said. “It means showing up for families, even when they feel the ground beneath them is falling through and when they’re having the worst days and the worst moments of their lives.”
Referring to the city’s public safety teams, including police, firefighters and EMS personnel, Wu said, “It’s because of the care, the hard work, and the empathy of these teams that Boston is the safest major city in the country.”
Isaac Yablo, Wu’s senior advisor for community safety and director of the Office of Violence Prevention for the Boston Public Health Commission, said the city’s approach to tackling gun violence has shifted from focusing solely on five hot-spot neighborhoods to “a city-wide focus, so that more residents are being met where they’re at and we’re addressing needs more holistically.”
“As we look into the new year, we will continue focusing on secondary and tertiary prevention, but the main goal will be primary prevention — preventing the violence from happening in the first place,” Yablo said.
Cox said the Police Department has “doubled our efforts in community policing,” following last year’s record-low gun violence, which he said has led to “historic lows” for this year’s number of shooting victims and gunfire incidents. Both are down more than 30% compared to the department’s five-year averages, he said.
Shoplifting, however, remains “an issue in our city,” Cox said, which has led to the police department making retail theft an increased priority alongside its efforts to “sustain lower levels of violence” — with the two sometimes overlapping.
He attributed that increased focus, by way of a Safe Shopping Initiative the department has partnered on with the Suffolk District Attorney’s Office, to a 113% increase in arrests for shoplifting this year — driven in part by a “substantial increase in timely, more detailed reporting from the retailers.”
“This increased reporting supports Boston Police Department’s ability to address repeat violent and high-volume offenders with the ultimate goal of keeping shoppers and retailers safe,” Cox said.
The police commissioner also shared statistics that suggest crime is down at the troubled intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard, an area commonly referred to as Mass and Cass and known for being home to the city’s open-air drug market, as well as the downtown.
Police have targeted Mass and Cass and the downtown in recent years, following reports of increased violence and drug activity, Cox said.
Around downtown, violent crime has declined by 24% this year and police have increased patrols there by 31%, compared to last year. Officers have made 48% more arrests in the downtown, including 30% more drug arrests, he said.
The police commissioner said violent crime is down 8% and property crime has decreased by 10% this year in the Mass and Cass area. Arrests at Methadone Mile have increased by 54%, Cox said,
Cox did not elaborate on whether those statistics for Mass and Cass extend to hot-spot areas like the South End, where residents have complained of open-air drug use, dealing and violence that has spilled over into their neighborhoods.
He also highlighted the department’s focus on reckless motorized scooter operations, which have become a nuisance for residents. To date this year police have seized more than 840 electric scooters, including 160 from the downtown area, representing a 22% increase in seizures since last year, Cox said.
The police commissioner said seizures are made for illegal, unregistered scooter operations.
Addy Brown motivated to step up in Audi Crooks’ absence vs. UNI
LIVE UPDATES: Mudslide, road closures across Western Washington
Matt Campbell reportedly bringing longtime Iowa State staffer to Penn State as 1st hire
How much snow did Iowa get? See Iowa’s latest snowfall totals
Man shot, killed at downtown Cleveland nightclub: EMS
Chiefs’ offensive line woes deepen as Wanya Morris exits with knee injury against Texans
The Game Awards are losing their luster
Elementary-aged student killed in school bus crash in southern Maine