Late in January, when Kyrie Irving, Marcus Smart, and Shane Larkin were all out with injuries, Celtics head coach Brad Stevens told Terry Rozier he was likely to get the start that night against the Knicks. Truth be told, there were no other options, but Rozier was still skeptical that his time had come.
“I didn’t believe him because I’ve been here three years, and I ain’t started not one time,” Rozier recalled. “Obviously, I saw how serious he was and I had the whole day to prepare myself to be ready. Things worked out and I got a triple double.”
Things have a way of working out for Rozier, provided the opportunity is there. After recording that triple double with 17 points, 11 rebounds, and 10 assists against the Knicks, Rozier got the starting call the next game. He dropped 31 on Atlanta.
Then came Portland and a matchup with Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum. Rozier struggled early and the C’s fell behind. Stevens pulled him aside and told him that it’s really hard to be good every night. The coach wasn’t offering Rozier an excuse. He was setting the expectation.
“Then he won the game,” Stevens said. “He made some huge plays at the end of the game and and you knew if he got his opportunity he’d be really good.”
So, when it was announced that Irving would miss the postseason following a series of knee surgeries, Stevens was confident that Rozier could handle the job. The third-year guard responded with huge games against Milwaukee in the first round and turned Buck veteran Eric Bledsoe into a punchline.
In the second round against Philly, Rozier averaged 19 points, 7.2 assists, and 4.4 rebounds while chasing J.J. Redick around the perimeter. He also found time to mix it up with Joel Embiid and later declared: “To set the record straight: I wake up every morning not worried about nobody, no man on this earth.”
All of that has made Rozier a folk hero in Boston, where Scary Terry t-shirts have become ubiquitous around the Garden. Rozier has embraced his following. A true man of the Commonwealth, he’s a Masshole in the best sense of the word, mixing absolute confidence with devastating one-liners. Most of all, he’s delivered.
Rozier is averaging 18 points, five rebounds, and six assists in the playoffs, making almost 40 percent of his shots from behind the 3-point line. His ability to attack the basket and create shots off the dribble with a devastating pull-up jumper has opened up his game. The most impressive aspect of Rozier’s postseason performance is that while he plays at warp speed, he rarely turns it over.
“What’s been the best part of it is his play, plus his poise,” Stevens said. “He’s a feisty competitive guy, but he’s played with poise all through these playoffs. That’s hard.”
Rozier’s play is a big reason why the Celtics are back in the conference finals, where they’ll begin their series with LeBron James and the Cavaliers on Sunday. Together with Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum, the C’s are young, athletic, and supremely confident.
People can be forgiven if they didn’t see this coming. Brown and Tatum may have been high lottery picks and mainstays in the starting lineup, but Rozier played little as a rookie and was an end of the rotation player in his second season. His strong play down the stretch as a starter gave a glimpse of what he could become, but the important thing is that none of this is a surprise to Rozier.
“I’m gonna put it to you like this,” Rozier told me. “I’ve been good, always. I’ve been at an elite level since Hargrave Military Academy. As these years have gone on, getting in college for two years, playing at this level for three years, I feel like I’ve become wiser and smarter. Obviously, I got better as a player, but I was always an elite player. Once the game slowed down for me, I figured, ‘Oh I can play with the best of them.’”
One of Rozier’s favorite plays is to fly in for defensive rebounds. He likes nothing better than snatching boards away from the giants in the paint and then igniting his own fastbreak, leaving a vapor trail in his wake.
“Toughness is something that you can’t teach,” he says. “You’ve just got to do it. Like a little guard that can go in there and get rebounds, that shows toughness. That’s been my whole life.”
Toughness was thrust upon Rozier at an early age growing up in Youngstown, Ohio. When Terry was a baby, his father, Terry Rozier, Sr., served eight years in prison for aggravated robbery. When he was released, father and son made up for lost time. They played football, like everyone does in Youngstown, and his dad taught him how to box.
Their time together was all too short. Terry Rozier Sr. is currently serving a 13-year sentence for his role in another robbery and is due to be released later this summer. The two have remained close and young Terry values what his father taught him.
“He didn’t take no disrespect and my mom is the same way,” Rozier says. “It’s just in here. Installed. When you got that in here, you can’t take that away. When I wake up in the morning, I’m not worried about nobody. When I go to work, I’m not worried. That’s not me trying to say how tough I am, but that’s just what it is. I have no fear.”
When the Celtics selected Rozier with the 16th pick in the 2015 draft there were howls of protest from draft analysts and their own fans. Rozier was projected as a late first rounder, sure, but the C’s already had a bunch of guards. What everyone forgot was that Danny Ainge doesn’t care about either of those considerations.
Those who work with Ainge know that his draft approach is to select the players that he likes, regardless of roster ramifications or current needs. And the players Ainge likes best are tough, athletic guards.
In his decade-plus running the Celtics’ front office, Ainge has drafted Tony Allen, Delonte West, Rajon Rondo, Avery Bradley, and Marcus Smart. All of them headstrong, willful, and fiercely competitive, just like Rozier, who was unbothered about walking into a crowded backcourt situation.
“Shit, I didn’t care who was on the team,” Rozier says. “I was just glad I got drafted. I didn’t care about no Isaiah Thomas, no Marcus Smart, no Avery Bradley. Danny changed my life. At the end of the day I knew they were going to respect me and I was going to respect them and that was that. I didn’t care who was on the team. I didn’t control that.”
The knock on Rozier was that he couldn’t shoot, but the Celtics figured that he’d thrive in the NBA where his speed and athleticism would flourish in the open space the league provides. His mechanics were also sound.
“If you asked me what Terry shot at Louisville, I’d have no idea,” Stevens said. “All of our conversations were, ‘His shot looks good.’ His work ethic is elite. His athleticism is elite. His competitiveness is elite. You would think a guy like that would continue to improve.”
The other concern for his pro prospects was that he didn’t fit into a positional box. At 6-3 he lacked ideal size for the wing, and he wasn’t a classic point guard. Naturally, Rozier doesn’t care about such distinctions.
“I’m a ballplayer,” he says.
What the Celtics believed, and what the rest of the league has come to understand, is that labels and expectations mattered little in the matter of Terry Rozier. He’s a ballplayer, tough and confident and proud of who he is and where he’s from.
And on the eve of Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals, that toughness will be needed if Boston is going to take down LeBron James and the Cavaliers.
In many ways, Rozier is the epitome of this Celtics team. The talent was always there, it just needed a chance to show what it can do, and once that was granted, there was no fear or trepidation about taking on the challenge.
“When opportunity come knocking on your door you’ve got to answer it and take advantage of it,” Rozier says. “That’s what I’m all about.”