Neemias Queta adds finishing touch to Most Improved Player campaign: ‘He deserves it’

Neemias Queta’s first season as a full-time starting center for the Boston Celtics has gone according to plan, as teammates have already begun rallying around his campaign for the NBA’s Most Improved Player award.

In the third quarter of Friday night’s 144-118 win over the New Orleans Pelicans, he drew the loudest crowd reaction of the night. Queta set a screen for Jaylen Brown and hovered around the perimeter as Brown drove and kicked the ball out to Jordan Walsh. Walsh then passed up the three and tossed it back to Queta, who sank his first-career 3-pointer, sending both TD Garden and Boston’s bench into a frenzy.

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Luka Garza and Ron Harper Jr. stood up with both arms in the air. Nikola Vučević raised three fingers, and Queta returned the gesture.

“Buttery. It was buttery,” Sam Hauser told reporters, per CLNS Media. “It was smooth.”

There was no bounce off the rim. No help from the backboard. Just a clean, nothing-but-net make from the 7-footer.

Queta missed his first seven attempts this season after missing three last season. In his first three seasons — two with the Sacramento Kings and his first with Boston — he didn’t attempt a single 3-pointer. Still, during his first year with the Celtics, Queta routinely worked on his 3-point shot with the team’s stay-ready group while serving as a backup to Kristaps Porziņģis and Al Horford. That pregame work carried over into his transition to a starting role this season, with teammates eagerly awaiting his moment.

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“He was pretty excited about that one,” Hauser said. “We were pretty excited for him. But he’s done a great job all year, gotten better and better and better, and really shown why he’s a starting five in this league and on our team. And I think his name should be in the running for Most Improved Player. He’s come up big for us a lot this year, and we’re gonna need for him to continue that.”

Giving the Celtics a 99-58 lead, Queta helped the team accomplish two feats: clinching the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference and tying the NBA’s record for 3-pointers made in a game (29). Although Boston fell short of breaking the record, the C’s became the only team in history to reach that mark twice, doing so for the second time in two seasons.

Boston shot 49.2 percent, making 29-of-59 attempts against New Orleans.

Queta finished with seven points, 10 rebounds, and two assists in 13 minutes. He attempted only three shots, draining each one, and checked out with 5:48 remaining in the third quarter. His lone block made Queta the first player in Celtics history to record 100 blocks, 600 rebounds, and 60 steals in a season since Robert Parish (1990-91).

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“That’s cool,” Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla told reporters, per CLNS Media. “Again, those are little things that are important because you see the work that the guys put in. And again, the responsibility, the ownership of a guy taking on being the starting center for the Celtics. So for him to be able to achieve that is great, and just his work and his attention to detail defensively.

“There’s a ton of pressure in our system on the bigs. They have to do everything on both ends of the floor, and he relishes that opportunity. That’s cool. I’m glad he got that, and he’s getting better and better.”

This season, Queta has averaged career highs in points (10.3), rebounds (8.3), assists (1.7), and blocks (1.3). He’s made 75 starts for the Celtics, leads the East in screen assists (272), and ranks sixth in net rating (12.9) — first among centers in the East and third among all centers league-wide, behind Victor Wembanyama and Chet Holmgren.

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“He just impacts the game in so many ways,” Vučević told reporters, per CLNS Media. “Some of those things don’t even show up in the stat sheet, but they matter a lot to us.”

Queta is among the most underrated centers in the league, due in large part to recency bias. Last season, he barely cracked Boston’s playoff rotation, logging just four minutes in the first round against the Orlando Magic and nine minutes in the conference semifinals against the New York Knicks behind Porziņģis, Horford, and Luke Kornet. The opportunity wasn’t there for Queta to make an impression — which, if anything, should strengthen his Most Improved Player case.

When the front office parted ways with three of the team’s primary rotation bigs, the pressure was on Queta from day one. He’s made the most of that long-awaited opportunity, transforming himself from what team president of basketball operations Brad Stevens described on Media Day as “unproven” into a legitimate NBA starting center.

For the first 62 games of the year, part of the reason the Celtics survived without Jayson Tatum was Queta.

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“I hope he’s up for it and I hope he gets it,” Mazzulla said. “He deserves it. And to me, obviously as a player, but more so what it means to do it for the Celtics, I think, goes a long way, and where he’s been on his journey in the NBA. But also his journey with us in our organization.”

Mazzulla is adamant that Queta should become the first Celtic ever to win the award since its introduction in 1985-86.

“He should seriously be considered that,” Mazzulla added, “because of where he was and where he is now, and we wouldn’t be in that position without him.”