Brad Stevens Wants Celtics To Be Word Processors

http://bostonherald.com/sports/celtics_nba/boston_celtics/2013/10/brad_stevens_wants_celtics_to_be_word_processors



Brad Stevens wants Celtics to be word processors

Monday, October 28, 2013
By:  Mark Murphy


Brad Stevens is attempting to install a philosophy just as much as a system.

Players who thought they knew what it meant to focus on detail have been challenged to look even more at the little things by the first-year Celtics coach. Players as different as Kris Humphries and Avery Bradley have commented on how much more detail-oriented the current regime seems.

Stevens, who likes to recommend reading for his players — Rajon Rondo’s favorite is a book tellingly called “Mindset: The New Psychology of Success” — has a mental file of quotations that support his approach.

“We used to say, and I don’t know whose quote this is, that one of the consequences of not doing the little things is that you realize there are no little things,” Stevens said recently. “That’s true. In basketball it’s really true, and when you’re playing a team that’s supposed to beat you on paper because of talent, it’s really true.”

Stevens won’t say he’s asking his players to think about the game differently, but depending on the player, that may be happening.

“We all know that he makes detail important and stresses the little things all the time,” said Bradley. “He makes sure everyone is in the right spot and makes the right cuts.”

Gerald Wallace, who has been outspoken about how this fledgling team has to improve, has probably been around too long to change his mindset now.

“I wasn’t in college long enough to have that college approach,” said the Celtics forward. “I’ve been here for 13 years, so I pretty much know what my approach is going to be. I also wouldn’t necessarily say that he’s learned from me. It’s a process you have to go through on your own.”

But there’s that word — process — one of the most important in the Stevens manual.

Rondo, asked what this focus on process means to him, started talking about Stevens’ presentation.

“He’s a great speaker,” said Rondo. “He had a great halftime speech (during last Wednesday’s exhibition win over Brooklyn). It’s going to be a process. Everybody is new, but we don’t make excuses. We try to go out there and get the job done. These guys are going to play extremely hard, and that’s all you can ask from them.”

Rondo, who hasn’t even been cleared yet for contact during practice, which resumes today in preparation for Wednesday’s season opener in Toronto, is envisioning how he fits into the new scheme.

It helps that Stevens has designed a system that, theoretically anyway, will accommodate the point guard’s return. That’s part of the process, too.

“Brad’s not really strict. He lets you go out and play the game,” Rondo said of what he’s seen from the bench. “He just wants you to play every possession really hard. That’s the way I approach the game, and offensively we flow into things as far as pick-and-roll, going to the post. Whoever has it going — that’s how he coaches the game. It will be fun to get back in, go out there and do what I do best — a lot of pick-and-rolls, getting to the paint. My teammates will make my job a lot easier when I come back.”

The process is also about players like Wallace, concerned enough about their team to speak out.

“Everyone has their opinion, and I don’t think Gerald was wrong to speak his opinion,” said Rondo. “But what he was talking about was that you have to play for one another. You don’t know how your game is going to go offensively, but you still have to get down and communicate on defense. Help the next man, play hard for the next guy. At the end of the day it’s about the name on the front of the jersey. You want to win as many games as possible. As long as we continue to think like that, we’ll be fine.”

There’s also room for Stevens to borrow from his veterans, of course. That’s where Wallace believes part of the adjustment will come.

“It’s an adjustment (for Stevens),” he said. “You can’t fault him for having to make an adjustment. It’s just like players coming from college have to adjust to the NBA game. It’s faster, more physical. Nobody can just come in and adjust in the first months, especially coaches. It’s a lot harder than it is in college.”



bob
MY NOTE:  Brad Stevens, mini-Zen Master





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It's refreshing to see a coach managing outside-in (looking at the little things within the context of the whole) rather than inside-out (a process in which players can sometimes get hooked so much on details that they never fully appreciate how their actions affect their entire team.

Sam