Phil Pressey - Trying to Prove the Celtics and Himself Right

Phil Pressey - with confidence and a willingness to learn - trying to prove himself and Boston Celtics right



Print Jay King, MassLive.com By Jay King, MassLive.com
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on October 25, 2013 at 10:22 AM, updated October 25, 2013 at 10:26 AM





BOSTON – As Phil Pressey dribbles the ball near midcourt the TD Garden crowd sits at attention, waiting for another beautiful pass, like the no-look gem Pressey had thrown Brandon Bass just a few minutes before.

The Boston Celtics are dishing and swishing, as Knicks announcer Walt “Clyde” Frazier might say, and the small point guard with an obvious bravado – as if to suggest maybe people should not underestimate him – controls the action, one creative pass at a time.

Pressey’s first half in this game, Wednesday night against the Nets, includes four assists, all of them visually appealing, all revealing rare court vision, all coming in a three-minute span that features a 14-4 Boston run. The assists include a shovel pass backwards on the fast break, a rifle pass to Gerald Wallace on the baseline for a layup, and the aforementioned sweetness to Bass. They help turn a nine-point deficit into a one-point lead.

Now Pressey is dribbling down the left side, near midcourt. Wallace and Courtney Lee are streaking ahead of him, trying their best to beat the Nets down court. That’s what wings tend to do alongside point guards capable of providing a reward.

In the split-second that is all a point guard is ever afforded, Pressey chooses his target. He looks to the right with every intention of throwing the basketball in the opposite direction, where Lee is now open, but difficult to reach. Pressey knows he can convert this pass. He sees, I’m sure, the play developing in his mind. He holds the basketball in his right hand and makes a big, sweeping motion to curl a bounce pass to Lee. The plan is for Boston to benefit from another layup, take a 3-point lead, seize even more momentum. Pressey designs the pass to bend around Nets guard Shaun Livingston and hit Lee in stride. The crowd expects the plan to work. Pressey feels in charge.

But the basketball skitters out of Lee’s reach, out of bounds. The announcer says, “Pressey tried to get a little too fancy.” Maybe the plan was too ambitious. Maybe Pressey just didn’t execute it well. Either mistake can happen with rookie point guards, especially ones who sometimes straddle the line between daring and dangerous.

“I think at times that we’ve played our best basketball with him on the floor,” head coach Brad Stevens will say after practice the following day. “Other times he hasn’t been as good and that’s to be predicted, right? He’s a young guy. But he comes in every day. I said this at the start: The guy works at his game. He wants to be good. It’s not an accident that he’s here.”

It is a great story, though, how Pressey ended up in Boston. He went undrafted and felt disappointment for about 10 minutes. That’s how long it took after the draft for Celtics president of basketball operations Danny Ainge to place a phone call. A short time later, Pressey starred for the Celtics summer league entry. He signed a three-year contract with one year guaranteed, bringing him back to the place where his father, Paul, served as an assistant coach under Doc Rivers.

Pressey has known several Celtics staffers for years. His AAU team, BABC, worked out at the Celtics team facility in Waltham. Several friends from his youth still live in town. He did need to teach himself the streets again, though. He didn’t have a driver’s license back then, so he never paid attention to where his father was driving.

“I worked with (strength and conditioning coach Bryan Doo) since I was like 11, 12. Me coming back, it feels like a second home,” Pressey said. “This is the last place I thought I would be, but I got back here.”

Pressey received a DNP-CD during the first preseason contest, but bounced back to lead Boston in assists at 4.0 per game, also averaging 4.8 points over almost 19 minutes per contest. His playmaking ability is obvious – prompting one reporter to ask Stevens whether Pressey reminds him of Rajon Rondo – but the Celtics still want the rookie to add a layer of polish. After the aforementioned scintillating stretch Wednesday, Pressey still finished with as many turnovers as assists (four) in the 101-97 win. Occasionally bad decisions hurt his draft stock coming out of Missouri and haven’t been eliminated through the preseason.

“I think Phil has got to learn where his spots are – where he needs to score, where he needs to pass,” said Stevens. “And I think a guy like Rajon can help him there.”

The two point guards have already built a partnership. After Wednesday’s game, Rondo said he tries to tell Pressey and Avery Bradley everything he sees on the court. Sometimes at practice, the four-time All-Star can be seen on the sideline, shouting advice to his younger teammates. He’s also been spotted taking players aside after timeout huddles, providing even more instruction. He says he’s been impressed by how open Pressey is to new information.

Jared Sullinger compared Rondo’s role in Pressey’s development to Kevin Garnett’s role in his own. Known for hard love – just ask Glen Davis – Garnett quickly accepted Sullinger last season, praising his talents and basketball intelligence from Day 1. Sullinger, an elite prospect throughout high school and a two-time All-American at Ohio State, probably did not need much affirmation of his abilities. But still, he said, hearing Garnett so often boosted his confidence.

“It helped tremendously,” said Sullinger. “Even though I played 45 games, you take the other games that we played, and I’m still being around the team, still listening to Kevin, watching how he practiced. It really showed why he’s one of the greatest to ever play. Just taking a page out of his book and adding it to mine will really help me out.”

But in some areas, Pressey needs no advice. Since the summer he has impressed the organization with his work ethic, and he remains one of the most likely Celtics to hoist extra shots after practice. If you think about all of the NBA’s shortest players – Pressey’s generously listed at 5-11 – they all seem to own a requisite spunk, like they are affected by basketball’s version of the Napoleon complex. Nate Robinson seems to believe he’s the best player on earth. Allen Iverson lived to test himself in the paint, trying time after time to conquer opponents sometimes a foot taller. Earl Boykins, Spud Webb, Muggsy Bogues, Isaiah Thomas, and the list certainly doesn't stop there – all with different skill sets, all bound by small stature and a terrific capacity to overcome natural shortcomings.

“You don’t get to where (Pressey) is at his size unless you’ve got a little something to you,” said Stevens. “You look across some of the smaller guards in the history of basketball, that are in the NBA now, that are in college now, and those guys all probably share one characteristic: They’ve got stuff to them. That doesn’t mean – he’s not arrogant by any means. He’s appropriately confident.”

Yes, Pressey is confident. That bears itself in his assists and turnovers, in his mistakes and his responses to them. The young guard will not be perfect, but he will keep coming.

“(Going undrafted) made me play with a boulder on my shoulder, not even a chip," he said. "Me just proving that I’m better than the next guys, all the guys in the draft who got draft before me. I’m just trying to prove everybody wrong."

And then he quickly corrected himself.

“Not prove everybody wrong,” he said. “Prove myself right, I would say. I know I can play here.”



bob
MY NOTE:  Pressey has looked pretty good in pre-season, overall, although not as good as in Orlando.  This could be a very nice pickup by Danny for us.  What's nice, and I know Sam loves this too, is that he is a pure point guard and not a tweener or a 1 1/2 or a combo guard or any of that stuff.  I see that as expecially valuable on a young, new team.  Having someone whose job is to "run the offense" allows the other players to focus on their roles and when you're new to the league, to the team, to the coach and his system being able to focus makes a difference.


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Pressey's presence seems to energize the team. Guys pick up the pace and feed off of his play. That's something they desperately need and Crawford just can't do it.

He does need to cut the TOs, though.


KJ