Brad Stevens sets steady beat for Celtics

Brad Stevens sets steady beat for Celtics


Mark Murphy Wednesday, October 28, 2015





Celtics coach Brad Stevens has high expectations for Marcus Smart and his teammates this season.



 
Only a handful of NBA coaches can strike fear with a simple timeout, but the Celtics seem to have one.

Brad Stevens didn’t like what he saw when his Celtics inbounded the ball into smothering coverage with 4.9 seconds left in overtime on April 4 in Toronto. So he stopped the play mid-stream. With a timeout.

The subsequent play — an Isaiah Thomas drive from beyond midcourt that was deflected by Lou Williams into the hands of Marcus Smart for the game-winning layup — caught the Raptors by surprise.

Toronto coach Dwayne Casey later said Stevens beat the Raptors “with our own play.” Evan Turner heard Williams talking the moment the final timeout was called.

“During that play, Lou Williams was walking back to the huddle and he said, ‘Oh man, we lost,’” the Celtics swingman said. “He knew we had a better play drawn up. Whatever Brad says, you know he’s prepared, and he’s researched it, so you have confidence in what he says.”

But Stevens also needs the right players, those capable of processing his on-the-run strategy and executing what he creates during those late-game timeouts.

Stevens’ Butler University teams were famous for their collective basketball intelligence and tenacity. Before yesterday’s practice, Stevens said that once he was given some roster stability after last season’s All-Star break, a similar intelligence gelled for the first time with his Celtics.

The plan is working. The coach is fielding an increasing number of Brad Stevens players. Where it gets muddy is attempting to define what a Brad Stevens player is, though versatility is an important word.

“I just like good players, it doesn’t matter what kind of skill sets they have,” he said. “The more versatile, the better. There are very few great players in the NBA who are locked in at one position. There are a couple, but for the most part, they’re very versatile players.”

The individual player descriptions seem to change, just like Stevens’ game plans.


Keep it simple

There’s no debate about who was the most cerebral Celtics player under Stevens. Rajon Rondo, despite his petulance, probably had a more agreeable relationship with Stevens than any of his other coaches dating to high school.

And yet the Celtics discovered that in the context of Stevens’ system, third-string point guard Phil Pressey consistently got the team into its offense more quickly than his ultra-hyped teammate.

Perhaps that’s why many different players, from Kris Humphries to Jordan Crawford, have thrived under Stevens after not fitting in elsewhere.

“He’s always kept it simple, which is why he is the way he is,” Turner said. “The other day, he spoke to us about the mundanity of excellence and focusing on all of the basics. Are you willing to do basics again and again and again?

“That puts you in a different spectrum than most people in the league and most people in the world. A lot of people don’t want to do stuff that comes off as boring, but he somewhat lives in that area and believes in doing stuff by repetition. I feel like we’ve always been fully prepped in certain instances. The part about his studying and the mental approach, you see all of that.”

Stevens is a repository of catch phrases — personal jargon like “corporate knowledge,” “pace and space” and “process.” It can all sound motivational, very much like what you’d hear on a self-help book tour.

“I don’t think he’s out there trying to motivate, but he’s somewhat of a genius for sure, for sure,” Turner said. “When you’re around him in games and you hear his knowledge, and some of the plays he draws up are unreal — even last year in Toronto. He’s always a step ahead.”

But in the scope of basketball IQ, is this really a form of genius?

“I’m willing to stand behind that,” Jonas Jerebko said when asked about Turner’s comment. “He’s a great coach, and that’s one reason I wanted to come back here, to play for this coach. He was a big part of that decision.

“Basketball is basketball, but everyone believes in what he says. Just a great basketball mind and a great coach, and everyone listens to him.”


Always on point

But it’s not a matter of finding players who can match his intellect, according to Stevens, though his early bond with Rondo was very much based on that quality.

“You practice it. We run plays off the board that they haven’t seen every day, so they get used to it,” he said. “Some guys need more work on it than others, but they’re all very good at it, and they put in the time to be very good at it.”

Stevens is no different and downplays his growing reputation as one of the best young minds in the NBA.

“No, I don’t look at it that way,” he said. “The one thing I do that I feel very confident in saying is that I watch a lot. I put in a lot of time, but I have to put in a lot of time. I’m still learning and trying to get better.

“I’ve gotten a better feel for the players who have been here — no doubt about that. I’m learning the new guys. But I go into every game with thoughts based on study of what I might do. I’m not thinking of it off the top of my head. It’s usually multiple days or a 24-hour prep to do that.”

Now, though, he has players better suited to those preparations. There also seems to be a growing number of players in other cities who would like to learn more about the experience of playing for Stevens.

“Everybody likes him,” Turner said. “They say it looks like he lets you guys play, and he knows what he’s doing when he calls a play. He’s not an ego type of guy. He’s not marching up and down the sideline. They hear how coaches react, they hear the things he says to his players. We also speak highly of him.

“When I came here it was all about taking it back to the basics, hitting singles. That speaks volumes when we did the three or four trades last year and still made the playoffs. We got better. Most teams would have quit, given up and not stuck with it. But from Day 1 he said the same thing and helped us focus on the bigger picture.”

There it is, hitting singles, another bit of Stevens jargon. Surely he must fall off message at some point.

“Absolutely not,” Turner said. “He always says the same thing. You trust what he says. It’s not like he’s speaking out of his butt. When he says it, he feels it. You can see it from his previous actions.”



bob
MY NOTE:  If you're a sports fan, even if it's Little League, you like watching the young players grow.  You like watching Paul Pierce go from being a highly talented player to an absolute assassin.  You like seeing Bradley go from being a 19 year old who was too intimidated to go out on the floor with KG etal and practice, into a leader and a damn good player.  Well, I'm getting a real kick out of watching Brad grow.  We saw him look overwhelmed, fighting gamely but overwhelmed a bit, in his first year and then last year we saw the beginning of the flower opening.  Danny can sign or trade for a player and, if it doesn't work out, he can trade him 2 months later.  It's not so good doing that with the coach (as the LA Lakers saw 2-3 years ago when they went from Phil to Brown to D'Antoni to Scott.  All different styles of play requiring different kinds of players).  When you pick a coach you better make the right choice the first time because if you don't you set your program back years.  No matter how well Danny does drafting, and I think he did a damn fine job this year, he hit a grand slam with Brad and because of that he can be more confident in his drafting.  Pop's not available.  Other than Pop, who would you rather have?  Honestly, who would you rather have being the coach of the Boston Celtics except Brad? World Champion Steve Kerr? Pop's protege Budenholzer in Atlanta? Ok, but we're getting into pretty rarefied thin air there.


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Bob we got Brad and until Pop is willin to give up the Alamo for some chowder and mebbe not even then, im good with Brad as coach. I jist wish he looked older, that's all.

Danny has done some great deals- trading for KG and Ray, trading away Mark Blount and Rondo, bringing in Doc at just the right time, then letting him go for a draft pick (im still baffled by that one) trading away PP and KG- but landing Brad just might be the biggest coup of them all.

After saying that though im still not sure if Brad views the Celtics Coaching position as a job or as something much, much more.