The Return of 'Braddery'

The return of 'Braddery'? Brad Stevens draws rave reviews after improving Boston Celtics thump New York Knicks



Boston Celtics head coach Brad Stevens watches the action in the first half of an NBA basketball game against the Milwaukee Bucks in Boston, Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2013. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)

Print Jay King, MassLive.com By Jay King, MassLive.com
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on December 08, 2013 at 5:06 PM, updated December 09, 2013 at 6:10 PM





NEW YORK – The Boston Celtics have really, really improved since the start of the season.

That may seem obvious: When they started 0-4 plenty of folks assumed, or hoped, they were going to tank for Andrew Wiggins or Jabari Parker. Now the Celtics, who just beat the Knicks by 41 for their sixth win in the last eight games, lead the Atlantic Division at an almost-respectable 10-12.

But whoa. At the beginning of the season, the Celtics resembled five lost guys walking around waiting for pigeons to defecate on their heads. Or maybe they were just looking (unsuccessfully) to stop Andre Drummond from dunking. Probably the latter – bird droppings supposedly bring good luck, and whatever the Celtics found over those first four games brought them none of that. But things have changed drastically.

During the past eight games, during which the Celtics are 6-2, they have fielded both a top-10 defense and top-10 offense. They are in the top half of the league in basically any team statistic we can measure: turnover rate, assist/turnover ratio, true shooting percentage, effective field goal percentage, rebound rate and (*faints*) offensive rebound rate. (Note: The Celtics are!) They have remained elite at defending the 3-point arc, and just as importantly, at limiting opponents’ attempts from that distance. They have even been one of the NBA’s best at defending opponents in the paint, a full world different from what happened over the first handful of games. The competition hasn’t been elite (aka it's been really bad -- the six teams Boston has beaten have a combined record of 48-72), but the improvements are real. The Celtics recognized their biggest weaknesses – mostly rebounding and taking care of the ball – and got better at every single one.

“We’re building on both ends of the floor. We’re executing our plays,” Avery Bradley said. “The coaches are doing a great job preparing us for the game. I mean, they’re doing an excellent job. They’re just laying everything out for us and telling us what we need to do.”

This all starts with head coach Brad Stevens, whose list of accomplishments in his first year as a head coach already include: unleashing gunner Jordan Crawford as a legitimate point guard, turning Brandon Bass into a low-post threat even though he’d been ignored on the block in previous seasons, and fielding a top-10 defense with a center, Jared Sullinger, who stands 6-foot-9 and could stand to lose about 25 pounds of excess weight.

Stevens does not attack his job with only conventional ideas in mind. In fact, I’m not sure he attacks anything, ever. He gathers information and tests new hypotheses, and then he keeps trying the methods that work well. The coach started Vitor Faverani on opening night, but has limited his minutes since noticing the team’s offense has crumbled with the center on the court. Stevens will say he believed in Crawford as a point guard from Day 1, but, during the second game of the season, he used Gerald Wallace at the position in crunch time. Of course, Crawford’s insertion into the starting lineup a couple games later gave the Celtics another much-needed ball-handler and freed Bradley from a role he probably will never master.

Especially because of Boston’s roster of misplaced pieces, building a team requires plenty of trial and error. Stevens lacks stubbornness and follows only what works.

“How do you tailor or cater to those guys when they’re out on the floor? Not only as a coach or as them individually, but as their teammates recognizing those strengths,” he said recently. “We just have to find those, and continue to learn and know each other better. We’re getting better. We’re getting better at that because we’re around each other more every day.”

After blowing out the Knicks, Stevens responded in predictable fashion.

“I’m not doing cartwheels. They know I’m not going to do cartwheels, I think they know me well enough by now,” the coach said. “But I was impressed, they know that too. I just said, ‘Just keep being a team, keep playing together.’ And then the other thing is that we need to keep building off of the good things we’re doing. Boring as heck. I know that sounds boring as heck, but that’s kind of the way I am.”

Let me stop this story briefly to ask a question: If you could have Doc Rivers for $7 million per season or Stevens for $3.5 million plus the Clippers’ first-round pick in the 2015 draft, what would you take? After 22 games, Stevens and the first-round pick are starting to look like a good choice.

When asked about Boston’s quick starts lately, Bass replied, “Coach Stevens, that’s him. It’s something he’s doing.”

Added Bass, “Day-in and day-out, Coach shows great poise. It’s rubbing off on me, and I think it’s rubbing off on the rest of those guys.”

Whenever Stevens took undermanned Butler teams on long NCAA tournament runs, one of my cousins called the success Braddery. It was his word for the near-sorcery that has followed Stevens; the coach took a mid-major team to the national championship game, then did it again a year later despite losing lottery pick Gordon Hayward. It was easy for my cousin to consider the deep tournament runs magic, but they came not because of any wand. Consistent overachieving takes a commitment to the day-to-day process of improvement. In another word, Braddery.

And it might be happening again in Boston.

In addition to critical changes in the lineup -- Sullinger's improved conditioning, which allows him to play increased minutes, has been huge -- the Celtics have digested Stevens’ lessons. He preaches that guards need to rebound; Bradley had a career-high 10 on Sunday and has been hitting the glass harder than in any previous season. He harps on ball-handling; Boston’s turnovers have decreased drastically over recent weeks.

"Learning how to win, I think everybody knows the general way to get there. But I do think that we're learning our jobs better, we're performing our jobs better, more consistently. And as a result, you're putting yourself in a position to have a chance to win," Stevens said. "I've always thought that you can do everything right and it may only give you a chance to win, and that's with any team you ever coach because the other team is playing too. So that's what you want. You want to give yourself your best chance of winning depending on each night, and to do your job on every possession is what leads to learning."

Stevens will need to make some important decisions soon. Kelly Olynyk should return from injury this week, and Stevens will need to figure out what to do with him. The rookie big man has missed all of the productive eight-game stretch. He’s skilled and big, but hasn’t yet figured out how to be a consistent defensive presence. Though the Celtics could be better off for now if his role is limited, he is young and worth developing. Rajon Rondo will also come back at some point, and it prompts the question of what will happen to Crawford. The latter guard has been very good, especially offensively, but his role will change by necessity.

One gets the feeling Stevens will experiment with both and see what works, kind of like he’s done with every other decision this season.

“You’re in a team-building phase really,” Stevens said. “That’s where we are now, that’s where we’ll be all year. We’re still building, building, growing, growing.”

Just the way basketball teams should always be.




bob
MY NOTE: Talk about focusing on details, I didn't realize we're 6-2 over the last 8 games. If we beat Brooklyn and LAC we'll be 8-2 over the last 10 and that's pretty flipping good! I read that we had a top 10 defense but I didn't realize we had a top 10 offense too (obviously, we're just looking at the last .



.

They can go over .500 this week . 


KJ

Frankly I think it's a good thing if we're not that aware of the Celtics' precise W/L record in recent weeks. That shouldn't be the focus with this team. The coach and the team are very simply zeroing in on becoming as good as possible as soon as possible, and that appears to be our focus as fans too. I think that's exceptionally healthy. Recognizing glimmers on which the team can build is a much more relevant indicator of progress than the W/L record.

Sam

Slow, steady progress at both ends of the court.

sam wrote:Frankly I think it's a good thing if we're not that aware of the Celtics' precise W/L record in recent weeks.  That shouldn't be the focus with this team.  The coach and the team are very simply zeroing in on becoming as good as possible as soon as possible, and that appears to be our focus as fans too.  I think that's exceptionally healthy.  Recognizing glimmers on which the team can build is a much more relevant indicator of progress than the W/L record.

Sam

sam,

As I understand (or misunderstand) 'glimmers', those are aspects of the game appearing in the Celtics' play that are good and positive and will produce steps towards #18 if sustained, continued and built upon. Put simply, playing winning basketball. To win #18, it takes wins. Aren't W's nothing more than actualizations of 'glimmers', proof that they are/were, in fact, glimmers and not fool's gold or wishful thinking?

Or am I just slicing the baloney a little too thin?

bob


.

Bob,

Too thin.  As I see it, a bona fide "glimmer" involves not so much an end result (e.g., a win) but rather the factors bringing about the end result.  In itself, the fact of winning a game, even though it leads to gratification, involves nothing constructive to build upon for the future.  A glimmer (at least in my definition) is not just a source of gratification; it's something tangible—something contributing to the long-term implications of either a win or a loss—that's a potential constructive stepping stone for the future.

Increased efficiency of a fast break; the sustained improvement in gang-banging the defensive boards; heightened on-court communication between players; consistent leadership qualities of a given player; taking better care of the ball; pushing the ball....  these are examples of potential building blocks.  Winning is nice, and it can improve morale, but a win without analysis of the factors facilitating the win offers nothing of diagnostic value. And glimmers may be present even in a loss.

Sam

sam wrote:Frankly I think it's a good thing if we're not that aware of the Celtics' precise W/L record in recent weeks.  That shouldn't be the focus with this team.  The coach and the team are very simply zeroing in on becoming as good as possible as soon as possible, and that appears to be our focus as fans too.  I think that's exceptionally healthy.  Recognizing glimmers on which the team can build is a much more relevant indicator of progress than the W/L record.

Sam

Yeah, the record isn't the most important thing, but I'd say its a solid measurement of the residual effect from Boston improving their overall play.

Better ball protection, offensive execution, defensive intensity, and better cohesion among the players is translating to victories on a more consistent basis. Certainly acting as proof that Steven's focus on the fundamentals is paying off.




KJ

KJ,

More than ever, I'd love to be able to attend some practices.

Sam