Inside a Brad Stevens Play

http://blogs.wsj.com/dailyfix/2016/02/24/inside-a-brad-stevens-play/



Inside a Brad Stevens Play


By  BEN COHEN




Boston Celtics head coach Brad Stevens gives instructions during a timeout against the Detroit Pistons on Dec. 16, 2015 in Auburn Hills, Mich. Associated Press




Here was the scenario for the Boston Celtics on Monday night against the Minnesota Timberwolves: They were down four points with 9.5 seconds left in the fourth quarter and inbounding the basketball from the side of the court.

“These are the situations you hear other coaches saying how they want to see what Brad Stevens runs,” Celtics play-by-play man Mike Gorman said.

“You know what I’m thinking?” said Brian Scalabrine on the broadcast. “Avery Bradley for three. One way or another I see the ball finding Avery Bradley’s hands.”

The one way or another was up to Stevens. In his three seasons as the Celtics coach, Stevens has become known as a master strategist, someone who could sleepwalk with a whiteboard and still create a good shot. It seems like almost every game he draws up an after-timeout play, or “ATO,” that gets basketball geeks in a tizzy. Even if he can’t understand why.

“These ATOs are no better than anyone else’s,” Stevens said. “I steal from everyone else. I really do.”

The play that he called Monday, though, offers a window into why his sets work so often.

Stevens has been using this one since he was the Butler coach. In fact, Stevens said, he ran the same exact play at the Maui Invitational in 2012. “And we missed it,” he said.




The play started with Isaiah Thomas setting a back-screen near the basket for forward Jonas Jerebko. Marcus Smart threw the pass to Jerebko, who would’ve had a good look at the basket, but he didn’t bother to look at the basket. That wasn’t the point of the play. The trick came after he caught the pass: Avery Bradley was running off a screen at the top of the key, and Jerebko passed to Bradley for a wide-open shot.

The key was the misdirection. The Celtics were hoping the Timberwolves would be distracted by the entry pass and stop paying attention to the real shooter because the goal all along was the Bradley three. But it’s not as if Stevens came up with the whole play by himself.

“So this is a great example,” Stevens said. “Where does that come from? Well, I’ve watched multiple college teams run misdirections where they threw it into the paint and had screening action outside the paint. We had run them, too. But then that play was one that coach [Micah] Shrewsberry’s college team, Hanover, ran where they would screen their own guy, throw the lob and score off the lob because they had an All-American center. So we just added the throw-it and hit the guy coming off the screen.”

The thing is, Stevens said, the play didn’t even work that well. Bradley’s defender, Zach LaVine, hadn’t bit as much as Boston wanted. Bradley had a good look only because Minnesota didn’t switch its defense in time. “LaVine was actually in pretty good position,” Stevens said. “But if you watch in other games, LaVine’s guy usually sinks.”

So what happened? Bradley took the 3-pointer and swished it. Then the Celtics got the ball back after missed Minnesota free throws, but they didn’t have any timeouts. They rushed up the court only to watch a buzzer-beater hit the rim. By then Stevens had done all any coach can do: He had given his team a shot.


bob


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