Blake Griffin Could Be More Than An Unofficial Boston Celtics Team Mascot

If you are a casual basketball fan, it’s possible you weren’t aware that Blake Griffin was still in the league, let alone currently with the Boston Celtics. Yet there he was, not just appearing in Monday night’s impressive blowout win against the Charlotte Hornets, but cracking the starting lineup with both Jaylen Brown and Al Horford were both unavailable.

Don’t expect this to be a regular occurrence. This was a mere spot-start for Griffin, a direct result of a somewhat banged up team playing the second night of a back-to-back. Head coach Joe Mazzulla mostly made the move to keep some of his regulars fresh, which is not to say that it did not pay off. Griffin immediately made an impact by starting the team’s scoring with a three-pointer and, in 22 minutes of action, he eventually scored nine points and picked up four rebounds.

The clear highlight occurred in the second quarter when Griffin unleashed an alley-oop dunk and—for one brief moment—the TD Garden crowd was gifted a glimpse of the player he was back in his Lob City days. Had the game been in doubt, Griffin probably would have earned more minutes but, instead, the Celtics earned an opportunity to empty their bench in the fourth quarter of what ended up being a 140-105 victory.

The irony is that, on a normal night, Griffin would have been one of those players stuck on the bottom of that bench waiting for garbage time. Before Monday, Griffin had been playing an unenviable role: the Human Victory Cigar. Like Brian Scalabrine and Tacko Fall before him, Griffin has become the player that the home crowd always attempts to summon by name, less a difference-maker than a signifier that the game is already in hand.

That’s a difficult role for an NBA veteran to play, particularly one who was on a Hall of Fame trajectory before a litany of injuries reduced his effectiveness. At his peak with the Los Angeles Clippers, the six-time All-Star was one of the most dominant players in the NBA.

The Celtics weren’t expecting anything close to that version of Griffin when they took a flier on him shortly before the start of the regular season. He was essentially signed as a “just in case” backup after Danilo Gallinari’s season-ending ACL injury and Robert Williams’s increasingly worrisome surgery updates. When the deal was announced, the best-case scenario felt like a familiar old story, the one about the declining star providing “veteran leadership” for a championship team in hopes of finally landing their elusive first ring.

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That indeed has been the story up to this point. With the Celtics continuing to be the hottest team in the NBA, Griffin has appeared in just eight games and has played for a grand total of 100 minutes. That’s the trick about signing up with a team that’s already a championship contender: it may not even matter if you’re capable of taking on a larger role than that of “unofficial team mascot” because the playing time simply isn’t there.

However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the Celtics are only going to play Griffin in meaningless situations. “He can give us a lot,” Mazzulla said after Monday’s game. “He’s really physical. He screens well. His ability to crash the offensive glass and his defensive communication is really good with the system that we have. There are going to be moments when we need him.”

When the Celtics first announced his signing, there was a reason to wonder if he had enough in the tank to contribute when needed. Griffin’s performance on Monday at least gave them evidence that he can rise up when his name is called. Until now, the most we’ve heard about Griffin has been his value as a “locker room presence,” but it’s clear that he also can still do a few things on the actual court.