Boston Celtics' Brad Stevens: Big Gerald Green fan 'because I've been scared of him'

http://www.masslive.com/celtics/index.ssf/2016/09/boston_celtics_brad_stevens_bi.html



Boston Celtics' Brad Stevens: Big Gerald Green fan 'because I've been scared of him'



Thomas Serves Up the High-Flying Oop to Gerald Green


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


,September 7, 2016 at 10:20 AM






BOSTON -- Doc Rivers used to have a term for inconsistent players who could shoot their clubs into or out of a game. Actually, he used to have a "team," which he called the all-scare team.

As far as I know, Rivers only named one player to the squad: Jordan Crawford, who approached basketball as if freedom were his only goal. Crawford would dribble and dribble, and then he would pull up for a contested shot, but sometimes he would also jam together powerful offensive bursts. His game wasn't for the purists, but he could lift his team on the nights when he started to roll.

"Every night, he scares both coaches," Rivers once said.

Brad Stevens would never put together an all-scare team of his own. He would not want to hurt a player's feelings with the dubious honor. But when the Boston Celtics coach described Gerald Green's potential impact Tuesday night, I thought back to Rivers' old saying.

"I've been a big Gerald Green fan because I've been scared of him," Stevens said at the TD Garden, where he and Rivers appeared at an event to benefit ABCD's Hoop Dreams foundation. "And I think that that's a great way to figure out how good a player is. When you go into a game, he's on your scouting report, maybe in a highlighted way because he could go off for a lot of points in a short amount of time. He can change the course of a game. Does he do it every night, historically? No. But he's had moments and times where he has done that. So I think he brings a spurtability to us that we clearly needed from a scoring standpoint."

Green's numbers have slipped over the last couple of seasons, but just two years ago he averaged 15.8 points per game while shooting 40.0 percent from behind the arc. Though he shouldn't play enough minutes to approach that production again, small doses of long-distance accuracy (perhaps with the help of some Brad Stevens pixie dust) would go a long way toward ensuring Green a regular role. Entering training camp, he could be competing for perimeter minutes against fellow backups Terry Rozier, Jaylen Brown and R.J. Hunter, as well as guys with more clear roles like Marcus Smart. Green will need to be good to find the court, but his upside is intriguing -- and scary, even, on the nights he really gets it going.


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