Nikola Vucevic returned for the Celtics, but is there enough time to figure out how he fits?
Vucevic was acquired from the Bulls on Feb. 5 for the helpful Anfernee Simons to help the Celtics spread the floor with his 3-point shooting and provide another interior scoring presence.
But two things have occurred since that trade: Neemias Queta has played well enough to earn a chunk of the minutes at center and Luka Garza shook off the demotion when Vucevic was acquired, flourishing as the backup and giving the team a lift with his 3-point shooting and offensive rebounding.
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So it’s not like the Celtics necessarily need Vucevic to survive, but turning him into an asset just makes the team better. And that’s the goal, to enter this postseason with as many reinforcements as possible.
The Celtics ran away from the Raptors, 115-101, on Sunday at TD Garden. Their magic number for clinching the No. 2 seed is just two with four games left. What’s more, that highly anticipated matchup with the third-seeded Knicks on Thursday may not have the meaning it did a few weeks ago.
The final four games must be used to get Vucevic into shape and acclimated with his teammates. He has a needed skill-set — the ability to rebound and shoot from the perimeter — but he’s struggled so far.
He’s made 33 percent of his 3-point attempts (13 for 39) and averaged 9.9 points and 6.9 rebounds in about 21 minutes per game. On Sunday, he labored to stay on the floor because of foul trouble and was a minus-14 in 13 minutes. He still looked uncertain with his new team, trying not to dominate the ball and playing with timidity perhaps because of his new situation.
Vucevic has never played on such a talented team. The 35-year-old has played in 16 playoff games and never advanced past the first round. A top-notch center, he’s twice been an All-Star, but it hasn’t resulted in much team success. Now he has an opportunity for a deep playoff run and he knows the team sacrificed to get him here, so he wants to produce.
Celtics center Neemias Queta registered 18 points, 7 rebounds, and 3 blocks in a 115-101 win over the Raptors on Sunday. Finn Gomez for the Boston Globe
“The chemistry part, that has to come from us playing and practicing together,” Vucevic said. “It was good to at least get these five games on before the playoffs. And we’ll have that week in between that will help. Just being around the guys, the time I did play I think that’s helped a lot. Obviously, it would have been great to have that full month that I missed.”
Vucevic is not panicking about missing time leading to the playoffs. But there is a pressure to adapt quickly and make plays when counted upon. The Celtics flirted with acquiring the former Southern Cal standout for years, but he has yet to show his best in a Boston uniform.
There is enough depth to compensate for his lack of production, but the Celtics would love three productive centers entering the playoffs, making them even more difficult to defend and giving them multiple weapons against more physical teams such as Detroit, Cleveland, and Atlanta.
“Not overthinking, try to play my game,” Vucevic said when asked about not trying to force the adaptation. “Do what I do and that’s the message that comes from Joe [Mazzulla] and the coaching staff as well. Just try to find my ways and be able to be myself in what we’re trying to do. As I play more alongside of these guys, I learn their tendencies, I learn mine and that will just come naturally.
“Today, honestly, when I was playing out there, I felt pretty good, pretty comfortable in the flow of the offense, defense. It wasn’t perfect. Just try to be me, just use my skill-set, whatever I can to help the team in what we’re trying to run.”
There isn’t concern for Mazzulla, but there is work to be done. The Celtics can only envision Vucevic’s potential in the offense because they haven’t seen it yet. The performances of Queta and Garza have made the transition less pressing. The Celtics were 10-4 in the games Vucevic missed, and Garza came back from being relegated to a garbage-time player to return to his previous form as rebounding maven.
“He was fine, he was good,” Mazzulla said of Vucevic. “It was only 13 minutes but, offensively, he made the right reads, missed a couple. Didn’t get him in as much in the second half as we wanted to, but he was fine. We have to continue to get him acclimated.”
And there remains a level of uncertainty.
“We don’t quite know how teams will defend him,” Mazzulla said. “Sometimes we just have to be able to read that in real time. His role is like with our other [centers], they’re connectors and make plays for us on the offensive end with screening and, defensively, rebounding and controlling the paint, just getting better and better at that.”
Mazzulla smiled when asked about Vucevic’s pressing to adapt.
“Vooch? He just wants to be and he’s been in the league a long time,” he said. “Just making sure he’s aggressive enough to where we have the best version of him so we have a different layer of what we want to accomplish. That’s the most important thing.”
Gary Washburn is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @GwashburnGlobe.
