Three times, the Celtics fought and fell short of their first win of the 2025-26 season, with each loss defined by the same problem: an inability to rebound. On Monday night against the Pelicans, they turned to fourth-year forward Josh Minott for his first career NBA start.
That decision paid off tremendously.
Minott joined Neemias Queta in Joe Mazzulla’s double-big lineup, a move designed to counter a winless, Zion Williamson-less Pelicans squad. Boston entered the night ranked 25th in the league in rebounds per game (39), and relying on Jaylen Brown, Derrick White, and Payton Pritchard to mask that deficiency simply wasn’t sustainable. So it quickly became a time for creativity for Mazzulla, who had just 24 hours earlier inserted rookie Hugo Gonzalez into the starting lineup in Detroit.
This time, with Minott getting a chance to pinch-hit, the 22-year-old rewarded the Celtics with 15 points, nine rebounds, a steal, and a block across 28 minutes. He finished with a +42 plus-minus, tying for the 8th-best mark recorded in team history (play-by-play era).
“I’m still kind of high on life from the game right now,” Minott said after Boston’s 122-90 win over New Orleans. “I mean, just the opportunity to be out there, just to contribute to winning, contribute to team success. I can’t take that for granted. Joe’s given me that opportunity, and I just don’t want to allow that to go in vain.”
Minott’s mission was accomplished at Smoothie King Center.
On the very first play of the game, after White secured the jump-ball deflection for Boston, Minott soared to the rim and hammered home an alley-oop from White, giving the Celtics an immediate spark.
From there, Minott’s nearly 7-foot wingspan helped the Celtics turn defense into offense throughout the night. In the second quarter, he intercepted a hand-off pass from Pelicans forward Saddiq Bey and finished with a two-handed dunk on the other end, taking advantage of a wide-open floor. Minott crashed hard after hanging on the rim a moment too long, but bounced back to his feet seconds later and immediately returned to disrupting New Orleans on the inbound.
“I cocked it back, and I was thinking about just flushing it — you know, just a little clean flush,” Minott recalled. “But then I’m like, ‘A game like this, it’s a must-win.’ So I’m like, I don’t wanna break the dunk, so I’m just gonna make sure the ball goes through the rim. So, like in life, I held on too long — sometimes you just gotta let go in life. But it didn’t hurt, though.”
To no surprise, Minott’s “can’t-keep-me-down” demeanor lined up perfectly with what Mazzulla expected.
“He doesn’t have a choice,” Mazzulla said of Minott’s second-quarter fall. “You get hurt, you’re not playing ever again. So he had the right attitude. He got up, and he almost got the deflection, I think. Again, it hasn’t gone the way we anticipated, but I think we’ve gotten better physically and mentally, and those plays show that. You have to stay hungry. You have to keep playing. You’ve got to keep chipping away at the identity that we need to create. I think Josh has bought into that.”
Mazzulla’s decision to give Minott meaningful minutes showed that, while the Celtics might not be able to rely on outmatching opponents in talent like they have in past seasons, they can outwork them. Sending that message is only one side of the coin — the other is putting that philosophy into action, which the Celtics are striving to do with a cast of unproven role players. Minott spent three seasons with the Timberwolves without logging a single career start before making his Boston debut in the team’s fourth game of the season. Mazzulla’s trust in him paid off this time, but the Celtics still need to find consistency for the formula to work over the long haul.
Between Minott, Queta, Chris Boucher, Luka Garza, and Xavier Tillman Sr., the Celtics can turn any direction at any given time. Mazzulla isn’t waiting around. If the moment demands a substitution, Mazzulla is pulling that trigger without hesitation. And this isn’t some scheme designed to pile pressure on the frontcourt, either. Boston is essentially hosting Open Mic Night each week under the basket, with every center on the roster welcome to showcase their skills until Mazzulla decides it’s time for a change.
Minott has no issue with that.
“It forces all of us to understand that it could be anyone’s opportunity that night,” Minott said. “And what I love about that is you have to wake up each day and realize, I have to lock in, because I could be the one to help us impact winning that night. So all 15, 16 — however many of us there are — you just gotta wake up each day and understand, like, ‘This could be my night to really help us impact winning.’”
Wildfire season is over for the year, but there’s still plenty of smoke around Vancouver.
The Canucks’ desire to improve their roster, and specifically their forward corps, is no secret. GM
Rick Dhaliwal initially reported, and then Elliotte Friedman confirmed, that the Canucks had been in contact with the Bruins about Zacha this past week, and that, in Friedman’s words, had “been going on for quite some time.” According to Friedman, “All the way going back to the summer, the Canucks and Bruins have been on-off about this.”
Vancouver’s interest in Zacha makes plenty of sense. They have a well-documented need for NHL centres, especially in the wake of Filip Chytil’s latest injury, and while Reichel has performed well through his first two games as a Canuck,
Zacha, meanwhile, is and always has been a centre at the NHL level. And, at times, a pretty decent one. The sixth overall selection in the 2015 Entry Draft hasn’t exactly lived up to that promise, but he has scored as many as 59 points in a season as recently as 2023-24, which is decent-to-good production for a 2C. At 6’4” and 211 pounds, Zacha has the kind of size that makes a difference, and he often uses it well. Zacha is a powerful skater with a heavy shot, and occasionally verges on power forward territory. He started out his career as a poor faceoff-taker, but has been well over 50% since joining the Bruins and is currently at 59% on this 2025-26 season.
Zacha is a better than average defensive player who faces somewhat-difficult deployment on a regular basis and almost always ends up with more goals for than against. He plays on both special teams, and contributes well to both.
In other words, there is a lot to like about this player in general and specifically his fit for the Canucks and their most immediate needs.
What’s the catch? It’s almost certainly the cost of acquisition.
The Boston Bruins are going nowhere fast. As of this writing, they’re tied with JT Miller and the New York Rangers as the worst team in the Eastern Conference. So, it’s not as if the issue will be their wanting to hang on to Zacha for their own purposes.
But the Canucks and their fans have experienced how dry the market for centres is right now. Zacha, if truly available, would be one of the only top-six quality pivots on the block in this present moment. Combine that scarcity with the importance of the position, and the number of teams actively seeking a centre improvement, and you’ve got a situation that the Bruins must know they can cash in on.
Zacha’s cap hit is only $4.75 million, and he’s only signed through this season and next. That’s a low contract commitment, and something that most teams could find a way to accommodate. That means that the
But is it possible to find a price that is right for both the Canucks and Bruins? That is the question, and given that discussions have apparently been ongoing for months, the answer isn’t readily apparent.
It’s hard to find a top-six centre who has been traded at any point in the last couple of years without a first round pick being involved. It’s almost standard at this point. And if that’s where the Bruins are at with their ask, it makes sense that the Canucks are hesitant to meet it.
The Canucks are just not in a position to trade an unprotected first. They’re not currently in a playoff position, and their start has not been anywhere near consistent enough to count on. Trade an unprotected first now, and that pick could still end up being a very high one.
The Canucks would also be incredibly hesitant to trade any of their true blue-chip prospects. The likes of Braeden Cootes, Tom Willander, Jonathan Lekkerimäki, and the younger Elias Pettersson are all far too much a part of the long-term plan to include in a deal. Maybe some of the slightly lesser lights, like Victor Mancini, could move, but then he doesn’t necessarily get the deal done on his own.
If we’re being realistic, teams don’t really get to pursue a valuable player at a scarce position while still holding all their preferred pieces in reserve. If the Canucks don’t meet the Bruins’ ask of a difference-making pick or prospect, it stands to reason that someone else will.
If we had to guess as to where negotiations are at, we think it may be surrounding a first round pick with conditions. The Canucks cannot afford to give up an unprotected first, but what about one that was top-10 protected? That’s a lot closer to palatable, but it still carries with it a number of risks. Most protected picks turn into unprotected picks the next year if their conditions are not met, and the Canucks are not in a spot where they want to give up high picks now or anytime soon. And even if the conditions are met, a pick that slots in between 10 and 15 might still be a price too rich to pay for a Zacha.
Think of it this way: the Canucks probably wouldn’t trade Cootes for Zacha right now. So should they be willing to trade a pick that could turn into the next Cootes within a year?
It’s a difficult balance to strike between the Canucks’ current, immediate needs and their long-term needs.
It’s tough to draw any concrete conclusions without knowing the exact state of negotiations. But if we need to bring this to a point, we can say this: the Zacha situation seems like one in which the acquiring team is all but guaranteed to overpay for the player. That’s the nature of Zacha being one of the few quality centres available for trade right now.
The Canucks, conversely, are a relatively asset-poor team. There are questions about whether they can afford to pay a fair price for Zacha. That means they’re really not in a position to overpay for anyone, and perhaps especially not a top-six centre from a bone-dry market.
As a player, and in a vacuum, Zacha makes an enormous amount of sense for the Canucks. But within the context of his likely cost of acquisition, he becomes what looks like a very difficult and inevitably risky deal for Allvin and Co. to close out.
