Celtics’ vision for Derrick White materializes throughout his stellar Boston debut

As the trade deadline approached Thursday, Gregg Popovich arrived at Derrick White’s hotel room in Atlanta for a surprise meeting. Popovich had news for White. Four and a half seasons into his San Antonio tenure, the team had agreed to trade the guard to the Boston Celtics.

The move took White by surprise. His contract extension had just kicked in at the start of this season. The Spurs had drafted him, invested in him and shown belief in him, but the NBA can twist in unexpected ways.

“It was all pretty crazy,” White said Friday after making his Celtics debut. “I was pretty shocked. I didn’t see it coming.”

During a conversation with Popovich, White said he tried to figure out what would come next for him. As much love as he has for Popovich and a long list of others inside the Spurs organization, the change hit White hard. Still, as the new reality settled in, he started to get excited about his next opportunity.

Barely more than a full day later, White was checking in for the Celtics to a loud ovation. Many fans stood to embrace the 27-year-old, letting him know they were eager to see him in green.

“Kind of had some goosebumps when I was checking in,” White said.

He was a little nervous but appreciated all the love. Then he wasted no time making it feel warranted. During a stellar debut, White finished with 15 points, six rebounds and two assists. He played the final 17:19, including a long fourth-quarter stint with what could be Boston’s new closing lineup. With some rugged defense down the stretch, the Celtics shrugged off a late deficit and a rough shooting night to overcome the Nuggets, 108-102.

This win followed a different recipe than the other six in this Celtics streak. After getting off to huge starts recently, Boston gave up a 10-0 run early in the first quarter and fell behind by double digits. It wasn’t a comfortable win for Boston. Not even close. The Celtics shot just 39.6 percent, including 10 for 37 from behind the 3-point arc. Without much offensive rhythm, they needed to engineer a second-half comeback, then close out a dangerous Nuggets team.

But the Celtics did. And White played a big part in it, showing how his versatility and unselfishness could lift his new team over the final months of the season. It all came in a rush for him. He didn’t discover he would play until about an hour before the game. At the last moment, the necessary physical results came in, giving him clearance to suit up. Before then, he had arrived early at the gym to try to learn as much of the playbook as possible. It helped to some extent that Celtics head coach Ime Udoka, White’s assistant coach for two seasons in San Antonio, came up on Popovich’s bench and still uses some of the terminology used by the Spurs.

“He speaks the language,” Udoka said.

White also knew some members of Udoka’s staff and had some familiarity with a number of Celtics players. White competed with Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown and Marcus Smart on the 2019 U.S. national team. Still, White knows he has a lot to learn about his new squad. In his debut, he just kind of hopped right in, checking into the game midway through the first quarter.

Despite the lack of preparation time, White made an impact almost immediately. During his first stint, he racked up two made 3-pointers, a strong drive to the hoop and a couple of pretty assists. He would have had more of the latter, but Grant Williams botched a pair of layups off nifty passes by White.

“We showed him some film and got him acclimated as quickly as we could,” Udoka said. “And he did what he’s done, what I’ve seen him do in the past. Very smart player that does a lot of things very well. We don’t miss a beat with him out there.”

How much does Udoka trust White? He didn’t sub him out for the final quarter and a half. By the time Udoka unveiled a new closing lineup (White, Smart, Tatum, Brown and Robert Williams) with 8:26 left, White had played about nine straight minutes, but he stayed on the court for the remainder of the game anyway. The Celtics, trailing by two at the time the unit took the court, slammed the door shut on the Nuggets with a 22-14, game-closing run.

Throughout White’s debut, the vision for him materialized. The Celtics used him as a ballhandler and as a roll man. They had him defend anyone from Facundo Campazzo to Aaron Gordon. White pushed the pace in transition, knocked down 3 of 7 3-pointers, finished a tip-in and scored a key and-1 with about two minutes left. White did a little bit of everything, exciting Smart about the possibilities with his new backcourt mate. After calling them “two of the best defensive players in the league,” Smart pointed out that the Celtics no longer have anybody small to pick on like they did over the past couple of years.

“Not now,” Smart said. “I could come off the floor and put him on and you have another defensive guy that is going to keep that momentum going on that end. And on the offensive end, you can play us together and make things really, really hard for other teams. That’s the beauty of having Derrick here: It takes a lot of pressure off of me, Jaylen, Jayson, Rob and the rest of the team, especially when things aren’t going well. It’s just another guy that can keep going for it.”

The Celtics don’t expect White to come in and score 30 points per game. That has never been his role. They do think he should fit well next to the team’s best players. They believe he can lift a bench that hasn’t always held up its end of the bargain. They hope he can provide another solid option for a closing lineup that collapsed too many times earlier in the season.

The Celtics haven’t done that lately. They have now won nine of 10 games. Given how they were rolling entering the trade deadline, Smart said he was happy to see the organization keep the team’s core pieces intact.

“Especially (after) going through what we went through at the beginning of the year,” Smart said. “We’re finally clicking. We’re finally coming together. To be able to see what we can do, I’m just glad we were able to do that. And then we also added Derrick and (Daniel) Theis. Derrick was able to be out there tonight, right off the plane. It was awesome for us. I just want to go help this team even more.”

The huge cheers for White didn’t feel like they were just for him. They were for all of the Celtics’ recent success. They were for the good basketball this group has played after a tough start to the season. They were for the hope that has been instilled over the past few weeks, the optimism that is starting to build anew.

And yes, they were for White too. Even on his first night with the team, he made it clear how he should help.

“We knew that it wasn’t going to take long for him to adjust,” Smart said. “And he came in and hit the ground running.”