Eric Musselman: Jordan Walsh Is A ‘Violent Defender’
The Celtics traded down four times during the 2023 NBA Draft and wound up selecting Jordan Walsh with the 38th overall pick. It was an anti-climatic draft for Boston considering they started out the night with the 25th overall pick after the Kristaps Porzingis trade. Should fans be excited about the Walsh pick? If you need some words of encouragement, look no further than Walsh’s collegiate coach, Eric Musselman.
Violent defender: Arkansas coach offers scouting report on Celtics rookie Jordan Walsh
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“I used that term last year quite often,” Musselman told NBC Sports Boston. “It’s about violently jumping in passing lanes, violently going after rebounds, and rebounding the ball outside of his area. He can crash into bodies, he’s not afraid of contact. And, hence, the phrase, ‘Violent defender.’
“When you’re gifted with great defensive instincts and then you have toughness and you have will and enjoyment in playing that side of the floor, it certainly helps. He takes great pride in his defense, both individually and then the team defensive concepts.”
“Defensively, what Jordan Walsh does is he can guard a guy, individually, and take a premier scorer out of a game,” said Musselman. “That’s what he did at the college level, where we could assign him to a top player on the other team and then not have to give any help. So he’s a great lockdown defender, individually, and then off the ball.
“He’s a great loose-ball getter. He rebounds out of his area, defensively. So it just gives you a lot of different things from a defense perspective. And, most importantly, he allows the coaching staff to have versatility in their defensive game plans because of his ability to jump passing lanes and create some offense through defense.”
Walsh, 19, has big shoes to fill if he’s going to take on that gritty role player role with the Celtics. Marcus Smart was beloved by the fan base and has a long way to go in order to win a Defensive Player of the Year Award like Smart did. This is still really high praise by the Muss Bus. I’m not sure he’s the type of guy to sugarcoat stuff.
Walsh, 19, has a 7-foot-2 wingspan and averaged 7.1 points and 3.9 rebounds across 36 games at Arkansas. Walsh will still need to work on his shot in order to make it at the NBA level. Walsh shot just 27.8 percent from 3 at Arkansas. That part of his game has to improve.
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