As Celtics fans grew to learn over the course of his rookie season, Grant Williams isn’t a man of few words.
While being vocal likely helped Williams out over the course of the 2019-20 campaign, this openness apparently came back to bite him in at least one instance in Year 1.
One of the more memorable highlights from Boston’s 2020 playoff run was a locker-room blowout following a loss to the Miami Heat in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference finals. The C’s blew a 17-point, second-half lead and ultimately sustained a 2-0 series deficit. Miami, of course, went on finish off the Celtics in Game 6.
Williams, as he revealed during an appearance on CLNS’ “Bob Ryan & Jeff Goodman NBA Podcast,” tried to have his voice heard as the C’s aired out frustrations in a postgame team meeting. But considering his rookie status, Williams’ words weren’t well-received.
“I definitely tried to speak up in that whatever meeting we had after Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Finals.,” Williams said, as transcribed by Heavy.com. “(They) definitely told me to shut the (expletive) up then but before then I got told to be quiet because I kept trying to explain how it worked; how this team played and stuff like that. They were like ‘you just got here, how do you know how this team is going to play or how this player does this?’ And I was just trying to help, sorry so I definitely got a couple of “shut ups.”
Such is life as a first-year player in the NBA.
Williams soon will embark on his second season with the Celtics, who are slated to kick off the new campaign later this month. Despite those aforementioned tense moments with teammates, we can’t imagine the 22-year-old will opt for being tight-lipped in Year 2 and beyond.
