Celtics Notebook: Brad Stevens' focus is on the Italian job

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Celtics Notebook: Brad Stevens' focus is on the Italian job






Photo by: AP
Boston Celtics head coach Brad Stevens smiles as he answers to journalists questions during a training session in Assago, near Milan, Italy, Monday, Oct. 5, 2015. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)

Monday, October 5, 2015

By:  Mauro Bevacqua




MILAN — The Celtics spent part of their preseason in Italy in 2007 and ended that season with a championship. They returned in the fall of 2012, wound up in the Eastern Conference finals, but fell to LeBron James’ Miami Heat.

So where will this month’s trip to Milan and Madrid lead them?

“It can be a great experience,” coach Brad Stevens said before the team’s first practice abroad yesterday. “Only if we can balance this new thing of being away from home with the awareness that we’re only 24-25 days away from the start of our season. We need to have productive days in the gym; these sessions are really important to get something accomplished in practice. I will address that to the team, because if we don’t understand what’s coming from a challenge perspective, we’re in trouble.”

For Stevens, the trip might offer a lesson or two.

“From my perspective, as a guy who loves basketball and enjoys the game, to get the chance to watch teams from other countries play, study the systems they run, and then watch their coaches, their style, I think I will try to steal something to use it later on,” he said. “That’s the fun part to me.

“I enjoy watching a lot of international basketball anyway, so to have the chance to play against Olimpia Milano and Real Madrid is a treat and a great challenge.”

He generally likes what he sees.

Stevens says he likes the spacing and pace of the international game, the emphasis on team and ball movement.

“There’s not a lot I don’t like (about international basketball),” he said. “I love the spacing. I love the emphasis on team. I love the way the ball moves. I love the pace of the game. I’m a huge international basketball fan. When I coached in the World University Games in China in 2011 with the United States, my most prized possession coming back was a 23-minute tape of plays that I still use, that I still look at, that I sent to a couple of buddies.” “You know, that’s what coaches do. You study, and for me that was incredible. I was the assistant coach (to Purdue coach Matt Painter), so I just had to scout all the other teams to find out how Russia played, how Finland played, and those were great teaching moments.”






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