Derrick White added muscle this summer with trainer Marcus Mason after the stronger stars he guarded in the playoffs gave him trouble on defense.
Marcus Mason knew when Derrick White bobbed up the court motioning that he tipped-in Marcus Smart’s three-point attempt on-time to win Game 6 against the Heat.
White reacted the same way, adamant when he believes himself correct, whether playing board games, trivia, or on the floor. Mason — White’s trainer since seventh grade — usually found White proven correct. After officials confirmed the good basket in Miami, White, Mason and White’s father Richard all thought the same thing.
“When everybody was celebrating Game 6 and the tip-in, I was saying, ‘hey, you got a Game 7 coming,’” Mason told CLNS Media last week. “That’s kind of been our thing throughout the course of his career is never get too high, never get too low, stay even-keeled and continue to work.”
White scored 18 points stepping into a scoring role in the second half of Game 7 after Jayson Tatum went down on the first play and Jaylen Brown struggled for much of the night. The 19-point loss and exit short of the Finals series White and his Celtics teammates reached the year before inspired a significant change, Boston trading Marcus Smart for Kristaps Porziņģis, which thrust White into the full-time point guard role. While Mason and White don’t view the shift as a significant one, they focused on White adding muscle this summer to make up for the brute force Smart and teammate Grant Williams left behind defensively.
plans on offense and walking White through scenarios he’ll oversee as point guard. Mason remembered Cassell getting down to work immediately, meshing well with White as they walked through late game plays, where to find teammates and what kind of coaching White prefers. Several Celtics discussed how much they missed the former player perspective Damon Stoudamire provided to last year’s staff that Cassell now fills.
Cassell said at Summer League he wanted to help the Celtics enjoy the process of becoming champions and reduce the pressure they play with while understanding what commitment to that goal can earn them for the rest of their lives, the same way his 2008 team became immortalized. White knows how to run an offense, helping DeMar DeRozan lead one of the league’s best pick-and-roll offenses in 2019. Boston’s offense comes packed with talent and Mason challenged White with an easily attainable goal — average the most assists per game of his career this season. Comfort and tweaks to his shot produced a career year behind the line (39.7%).
Their work this summer, including long-running treks up thousands of steps in Colorado’s mountains, aim to help White play longer, stronger and deeper into the postseason. Fans may notice his haircut first, but family life, higher stakes and a new role pushed White to enter this season stronger in less visible ways, more confident and shouldering more responsibility as a leader.
“He’s a grown man and that’s what he wanted to do,” Mason said of White’s haircut. “I like the look … it’s good. I think it’s gonna be a good thing, I don’t think hair makes shots. I’m all into making shots and playing defense. I’m not a how you look type of guy
Leave a Reply