Nader's Greatest Lesson: Don't Ride the Wave

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Nader's Greatest Lesson: Don't Ride the Wave




By Marc D'Amico |  @Marc_DAmico
Celtics.com



March 22, 2018




PORTLAND, Ore. –The greatest lesson Abdel Nader has learned during his rookie season is to not ride the wave.

Had he been surfing Tuesday night, he would have wound up gasping for air.

‘Riding the wave,’ as some call it, is a dangerous proposition. Doing so permits players to get too caught up in the bad moments, and sometimes even in the good moments. Nader has learned over the past seven months in a Celtics uniform that he can’t allow himself to do so; he’d prefer to calmly swim in the water rather than to ride its waves.

“You have a bad game, you can’t get down. You have a good game, you can’t get too high,” he explained Thursday afternoon, following Boston’s practice in Portland. “You’ve just got to find that median so that there’s not a bunch of ups and downs and your play doesn’t suffer for it.”

There were certainly some downs Tuesday night, but the forward didn’t allow them to affect him for the entire night.

Nader’s first five minutes of action against Oklahoma City were tumultuous, as they featured a missed layup, an ugly turnover, an airball, a foul on a Paul George three-point play, and another miss. He did tally two rebounds and an assist during that time as well, but Nader was clearly frustrated.

Still, amid some groans from the crowd, Brad Stevens stuck with Nader – and for a lengthy amount of time. He played the final 5:34 of the first quarter and the first 5:38 of the second quarter, totaling a stint of 11 minutes and 12 seconds of consecutive play.

Nader wound up contributing four rebounds, three points, an assist and a steal during that stretch of play, all while helping the C’s to play neck-and-neck ball with the Thunder. Oklahoma City outscored Boston by only one point during those 11-plus minutes.

As recently as a year ago, before he learned not to ride the wave, Nader may not have rebounded from Tuesday’s poor start. A year ago, that tinge of frustration he felt could very well have snowballed.

“It’s something that I’ve been working through since I was in high school,” he admitted. “Every player works through it. I think even the great ones today still have issues with it and they still have to get better every day.”

Now that he las learned the all-important lesson, Nader understands that he must play with tunnel vision regardless of what happened a play, a minute, a quarter, or a game ago.

“You’ve just got to keep playing,” he explained. “There’s another opportunity tomorrow, so just try to take advantage of that one.”

He is certainly taking advantage of his opportunities right now for the injury-riddled Celtics. Nader averaged nearly 22 minutes of action over the last four games and capitalized on that playing time with averages of 8.0 points, 3.8 rebounds and 1.0 steals per game, all while shooting 46.2 percent from long distance.

The forward is playing with confidence and tunnel vision, and the key to him unlocking such a mindset has been the presence Stevens.

There may be no coach in the NBA who drips more positivity than, or who preaches about staying in the moment as much as Stevens. His approach to coaching instills confidence in his players.

“When he says, ‘If you’re open, shoot it.’ When he says, ‘Play your game and play hard defensively, and you’re not going to upset me.’ I think that’s great,” Nader said. “Usually you get coaches that are like, ‘Well, we have Kyrie Irving, so let Kyrie Irving make all the plays.’ But he’s not like that at all. He gets everyone involved and does a great job of utilizing everyone.”

Stevens doesn’t do it for show, either. He truly believes in every player who is on his team, and he believes their time on the court is equally valuable to them as individuals and to the team. Sticking with Nader for 11-plus minutes, despite those early struggles, was just another example of those beliefs.

“Ab is a good player,” Stevens said of Nader. “One of the things that young players are always going to gain as they get more experience is confidence to be able to compete at this level, at this speed of the game, which is unbelievable.

“He’s playing against the best of the best, and I think that’s a good thing,” he continued. “It’s a good thing for him. It’s a good thing for us.”

That’s no fib.

Take this into consideration: when all was said and done as the Celtics wrapped up a thrilling 100-99 victory Tuesday night, they had played some of their best basketball while Nader was on the court. Boston had outscored the Thunder by seven points during Nader’s 18-plus minutes of action. That number stood as the third-best mark on the team, behind only Jayson Tatum (plus-23) and Shane Larkin (plus-17).

That’s what happens when a player doesn’t ride the wave.

It took many years of basketball for Nader to learn that lesson. Now, at age 24, he has been thrust into Boston’s rotation, and he’s calmly swimming the waters of a push toward the Playoffs.



bob


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I have read several articles that have basically been killing this guy. Glad that his coach is standing by him.

Criticizing this kid is completely unnecessary at this time. Sure, he is not a perfectly complete NBA player yet, but unless he starts to quit on himself he needs to get some love and not criticism at this time in his career.

We don't know whether he will become an NBA rotation player yet. He may make it and he may also not make it, but as an almost last pick in a draft I would say that he is doing at least OK right now.

Unfortunately for the Cs, he has been thrust into a spotlight much before he was ready. Give the kid a break.