Saturday, July 9, is a day JD Davison will never forget. He officially signed his two-way contract with the Celtics, then played in his first professional basketball game.
By no means was it a perfect performance, as illustrated below, but there were a lot of positives from Davison's debut. In Boston's 88-78 loss to the Heat, he finished with ten points on 3/11 shooting, dished out six assists, grabbed six rebounds, registered three blocks, two steals, and only one turnover.
In the play below, Javonte Smart's gamble, going for a steal, creates an express lane for Davison to attack downhill and get into the paint. Trevion Williams wisely slow plays his way to the basket for the sake of spacing. Davison throttles down as he gets into the paint, maintaining control, holding the attention of two Miami defenders, then jumping at them, forcing the duo to engage, and the second-round pick from Alabama lofts a floater over them to Williams for the dunk.
In his lone collegiate season, Davison shot 30.1 percent on 2.5 three-point attempts per game, but on Saturday, he went 2/5 from beyond the arc, knocking down 40 percent of his long-range field goals.
He also represented himself well on the defensive end. Here, after a Celtics turnover, it's on Davison to pick up the player with the ball, Kyle Allman Jr., in transition. Davison and Juhann Begarin do a nice job communicating that, and the former gets square with Allman, slowly retreating, not conceding much real estate. He stays low, gets his arms out, keeps moving his feet, his eyes are locked-in on the ball, and when Allman tries to bring it back up to go for a layup, Davison strips it, and the ball goes out of bounds off Allman's chest.
The next play is a mixed bag. First, Davison does well to stay with Smart as he flares out to the left wing. He goes under an Orlando Robinson screen and in front of Mfiondu Kabengele, getting back to Smart before he even shows much interest in attempting a three. Davison and Begarin then force Smart to give the ball up without having created anything productive. And for the cherry on top of a terrific defensive sequence by Davison, he doesn't just contest the pass to the screener, Haywood Highsmith, but he picks it off.
Unfortunately, as seen above, at the other end, Davison blows the layup. He went 1/5 in the restricted area on Saturday. The former Crimson Tide guard was pretty good finishing at the rim in college, so hopefully, this is an anomaly.
While Davison's abilities as a finisher weren't reflected accurately in his Summer League debut, his explosiveness and ability to get into the paint consistently were. Here, when Highsmith recovers, he's shading Davison towards help defender Marcus Garrett. But rather than playing into Highsmith's hand, the Celtics' rookie snaps a crossover dribble that creates considerable distance between the two. He then engages Bryson Williams, again leaping towards a Miami center before dishing to Trevion Williams, who gets two points inside the restricted area.
Late in the game, Davison finally got an attempt at the rim to go down. He patiently lets his defender, Mychal Mulder, make the first move. When Mulder lunges to fight over the screen, Davison rejects the pick and crosses by Robinson, getting into the paint. He then maintains separation without jumping too far from the hoop and finishes with a soft touch.
Unfortunately, you can see he came up hobbling after the layup, and he then committed a take foul and subbed out, but Davison spoke after the game and didn't express any concern.
Hopefully, Davison can build off Saturday's performance in the Celtics' next matchup, which is Monday against the Bucks at 8:00 p.m. ET.
In the meantime, you can see more of Davison's Summer League debut below, courtesy of Tomasz Kordylewski.
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