BOSTON — Boston Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla said guard Jrue Holiday remains day-to-day with a strained hamstring and gave no indication whether he would be available for Game 1 of the second-round playoff series on Monday against the New York Knicks.
“He’s just getting better every day, doing whatever he can to make sure he puts himself in position to come back as fast as he can,” Mazzulla told reporters. “He’s working hard.”
The Celtics advanced to the Eastern Conference semifinals on Tuesday night by eliminating the Orlando Magic in five games. It was a physical series that saw All-Star Jayson Tatum bruise his wrist when he was knocked to the floor on a hard foul by Kentavious Caldwell-Pope in Game 1.
Tatum missed Game 2 but returned strong, scoring 36, 37 and 35 points in the next three to close out the Magic. Fellow All-Star Jaylen Brown could also use the time to heal a right knee impingement that kept him out of the final three games of the regular season.
Guard Derrick White said the team knows how to use the time off wisely. When the Celtics won it all last year, they had five days off twice, six days once and nine days off before the start of the NBA Finals against the Dallas Mavericks.
“You want to take care of your body, but you also don’t want to get rusty,” he said on Friday. “So just try to find that balance of pushing yourself in your workouts so you’re ready to go when the game happens, but also getting your recovery, getting your rest.
“I think each gap is a little different, depending on how I feel, how my body’s feeling,” he said. “I’ll take a couple of days off, and then I’ll just try to prepare for, for New York and, and what we expect to see.”
