In his first return to Boston since being traded to the Brooklyn Nets, Josh Minott spoke about his brief tenure with the Celtics, following a 148-111 blowout at the hand of his former team.
The 23-year-old forward dropped nine points on 4-of-7 shooting, including a thunderous and-one dunk in the first quarter that even got "oohh's and aahh's" from the TD Garden crowd as if he had never left, in 17 minutes of significant playing time -- his first as such since late December when Minott was still in Joe Mazzulla's regular rotation with the Celtics.
"It felt good to be back, and it didn't," Minott told reporters in the visitor's locker room. "Yeah. That's about it."
Minott was very much a part of the early success of the 2025-26 Celtics season. In the 10 games he started for Boston, including nine in a row through the early part of November, he scored in double-digits six times, while setting a career-high of 21 points, and also grabbed a career-best 15 rebounds during that span and appeared he was a permanent solution to a then lack-of front court depth problem.
It seemed like Minott was finally getting an opportunity in Boston, something that couldn't be said for the start of his NBA career with the Timberwolves where he was playing just under six minutes per contest over the better part of three seasons.
Still, it looked like Minott had found a role with the Celtics averaging 5.8 points on 50% from the field, including knocking down 44.2% from behind the arc, until he fell out of the rotation altogether before the turn of the calendar year.
"I don't really know what going wrong means," Minott said when asked what he though went wrong. "It's obviously a very talented group and we are all capable of being disruptive defenders. We all knew it was a deep team and very talented. That's how I saw it."
While the DNP's started to rack up for Minott, he saw teammates Jordan Walsh, Hugo Gonzalez and Baylor Scherierman all get consistent regular rotation minutes. Then an ankle injury caused Minott to miss most of January, that essentially ended his time with the Celtics.
"It was my first real taste of adversity since I got drafted," he said. "That was definitely a mental test for sure. The Boston staff really helped me with my recovery process, Brooklyn as well since I've been here. It's kind of more fine-tuning now. It's different when one day you are doing crazy dunks and the next day, you can't walk and get upstairs."
Minott was moved at the trade deadline, as one of three players that the Brad Stevens dealt and who weren't in the rotation as part of a salary dump in an effort to avoid the luxury tax. Since then it is not quite clear that had Minott not been moved if he would have gotten a chance to re-gain Mazzulla's trust and get back to playing meaningful minutes, which is now up to the Nets to decide if he's worthy or not.
"I got a different jersey on. That's about it," Minott said. "Live, eat, breathe, Brooklyn now. It's been a very welcoming environment for sure, from the G League to here. It's been a great staff, I've been well received and just continuing to work."
Despite having to start all over again with a new franchise when it comes to proving he belongs in the NBA and playing regular minutes, Minott has no ill-will toward the Celtics, who gave him an opportunity to showcase his talent on a roster that was viewed as a contender prior to being traded.
"I left on no bitter note," he said. "You see it, I dapped everybody up. It's always love with everybody here unless we play them, then it's hate. After the game is over, those 48 minutes were enemies but I definitely had a great experience here for sure."
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