Evan Turner, Brad Stevens discuss possibility of Boston Celtics rotation shakeup

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Evan Turner, Brad Stevens discuss possibility of Boston Celtics rotation shakeup




Print Email Jay King | mjking@masslive.com By Jay King | mjking@masslive.com

on December 19, 2015 at 2:45 PM



BOSTON -- Evan Turner did not need a film session to realize the Boston Celtics fumbled away Friday night's game against the Atlanta Hawks.

He watched from the bench as the two clubs played an embarrassing first three minutes. He was on the court as the Celtics folded down the stretch. It was obvious to him, just like it was obvious to everyone else: Boston failed to bring its best and paid the price with a third straight loss.

But while head coach Brad Stevens discussed the possibility of a rotation shakeup, Turner insisted the Celtics just need to regain the mentality they exhibited a week ago, when they were in the midst of a 5-2 stretch against a tough schedule.

"I think we just have to weather the storm and pull through," the wing said before practice Saturday. "And once again be accountable. So I don't really – what could you possibly shake up?"

The Celtics first unit has been pretty good, outscoring opponents by 4.2 points per 100 possessions this season. All five starters are likely to play big minutes regardless of a shakeup, even when injured guard Marcus Smart returns.

Any real change might come on the bench, where David Lee's advanced statistics have raised the question about whether he should stick in the rotation. Stevens could go to small lineups more often. He could allow Tyler Zeller out of his basement dungeon. He could consider tweaking several parts of his lineup patterns.

"We might have to," Stevens said. "We'll see. I'm going to let today's practice bear itself out. We'll practice again tomorrow, see how we look (and) feel. We've got a long film session today. So we'll see. But we may have to. You know, it's one of the things that we've talked about. If we're going to talk about our depth being a positive, then we should utilize it. So we'll see. We'll see what we think is best, not only for this particular game (Monday against Minnesota), but more so as we move forward. Obviously as we get closer to having Marcus back, that's a positive. But we can't rely on that."

Despite the coach's roster-searching, Turner does not believe a change will come.

"I don't think that's going to happen," he said. "At all.

"Nah, bro. We've got to get the great Marcus Smart back. That's what we're really missing at the end of the day."

After a few beats, Turner added, "Or Larry Bird."

Bird coming out of retirement to rejoin his former team does not seem particularly likely, but Smart should return sometime near New Year's Day. And he will help.

"I have the utmost respect for Smart as a competitor," said Turner. "He'll definitely help because his intangibles are great. Certain games we needed something defensively, somehow he ended up with a loose ball or a charge, or damn near a fight. So obviously Smart's going to come back.

"But at the same time, regardless, we have enough capable players where at the end of the day I don't think it's more personnel. It's more, in this instance, mentality and accountability. I think we need to be even more accountable amongst each other. And communicate a little bit better. And kind of buckle down and get things going, and stop the bleeding. And obviously things seem 10 times worse because we lost three games in a row. It's Game 27 and we have a lot more to play. Like, 52 or something like that."

Forgive Turner's temporary lack of math skills. After hearing about his mistake, he quickly righted the issue.

"Fifty-five or some sh--," he said. "Alright, so I bounced back. Fifty-two, 55, it's still impressive. My drunk math is even better."

For now, Turner's drunk math should tell him the Celtics are a 14-13 team on the outskirts of the Eastern Conference playoff race.

"We'll be fine," he said. "We've just got to set the tone and somewhat be even more connected, especially in times like this. And we'll be fine. I'm not really panicking. It's little things such as, one, taking care of the ball, and maybe how we obviously start the game, and even communicating, I think we need to communicate a little bit more and better. I think our communication has gone down in the past couple of games. Once we do that, we have two days of practice to do so, we'll be fine."

"It's 82 games," added Stevens. "I think the biggest thing is if you don't have grit in this thing, if you don't have some perseverance about you, you're in trouble. You'd better have some enthusiasm you can create on your own. You'd better have some real endurance to you. And it's not for the weak. Teams will fade away and some teams will get stronger. That's to be determined. We'll find out."



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