Everybody <3 Brad Stevens

Ok, not everybody, but I'm trying to remember that this is what we expected when he got hired and look "big picture".


These are excerpts from 2 articles, one from the Globe and one from ESPN.  To be honest, most of both of them were baby food, so I cherry-picked a bit.


Boston Celtics coach Brad Stevens said that despite the struggles his team has endured this season, the commitment of the players on his roster hasn't wavered and he stressed that's played a big part in helping his team remain competitive while navigating this transition season.

"It doesn't surprise me because of the people we have on the roster," Stevens said Thursday while appearing on ESPN Radio's SVP & Russillo. "Our character on this roster is really good. Then when you look at guys that don't play as much, when they come into the game, how they support each other on the bench, I'd put our guys up against anybody. They are in it together. We've got a guy Gerald Wallace, who is now out for the season and he's around our guys every chance he gets. He's at the games -- he doesn't travel because we need him to stay here to do his rehab after ankle and knee surgery a couple weeks ago -- but we've got a nice dynamic there. We just have to get better, there's no two ways around it -- 23-48 is not good enough. It's not good enough for anybody here. And it's not on any one person, it's on each and every one of us. But the commitment to doing so and the commitment to playing together, I have not questioned."

With 71 games in the rearview mirror, Stevens was asked if he's had a moment where the pace of the NBA schedule has caught up with him.

"It's funny, a couple of weeks ago somebody said, 'Hey, the regular season is only 20 more games,' and I was thinking, 'Man, that' not a lot.' But that's 2/3 of a college season and that's going to be crammed into six weeks. It has not hit me, or at least I don't know if it's hit me, you know how you're kinda grinding on adrenaline? Shoot, we play Toronto last night; we have to get on a plane and fly up there, we gotta play them again [Friday] night. We play the Bulls back-to-back on Sunday and Monday. Boy, you start feeling sorry for yourself, you start thinking you're tired, you're not going to very good at this. It's such a great challenge, night in, night out, that there's no time to be tired.


Brad Stevens knew. Of course he knew.

“I knew that there was the potential that this wasn’t going to be an easy road,” the Celtics’ coach said.

His first NBA season would be paved with losses, for that is the plight of a rebuilding team. Defeats were certain, the only question being how many.

“It was a big concern of mine, that I give my coach the support that he needs,” said Danny Ainge, the Celtics’ president of basketball operations.

“Because he hasn’t been through it before.”

Not just the NBA, but enduring so many losses at such a rapid pace.

After all, here was college basketball’s winningest coach ever in his first six years, as Stevens won 166 games at Butler during that span, losing just 49.

With the Celtics, though, Stevens has lost 48 games so far in one season — and loss No. 49 could come Friday when his team plays the Raptors in Toronto.

“I think he’s had a lot of sleepless nights,” Ainge said. “I think it takes a toll. Whether he’ll admit that or not, I don’t know.”

Stevens defers, instead referring to his focus on the process — always the process.

“Having that focus is helpful whether you’re winning or losing,” he said, “because it kind of takes your emphasis, or overemphasis, away from the result.”

And even though Stevens has nearly lost as much in one season with the Celtics as he did in six seasons at Butler, he still views losses with the same distaste.

“It’s like if you have to eat a food you don’t want to eat — it doesn’t matter what plate you put it on, you still hate it,” Tracy (Stevens) said.

But, she said, her husband is holding up fine.

“What I love, love, love about him is that he has not changed his approach or his tenacity — the way he approaches every game,” she said. “He’s attacking these games the same way he attacked them in November, in that he has no way given up in that quest to win every game.”

Several Celtics players say the same.

“Throughout the whole year, he’s had a great mind-set,” said Brandon Bass. “Every day, he has a great plan for us to take a positive approach, to try to improve, day in, day out. I think he’s handled it with great poise, really not like a first-year guy.”

The season has had more lows than highs, but Avery Bradley said Stevens has remained level throughout.

“He gets on us when we’re not playing the right way, but he feels like we have a chance every single game,” Bradley said.

Is there surprise that he would be steady amid so many losses?

“Anybody that loves the game that much, they know that losing comes with it,” Bradley said. “It’s all about the rebound after, how you react from a loss.”

The losses have come in torrents. He had never lost four straight at Butler, yet he began his NBA career that way. The Celtics then lost five straight in November, before rising to the top of the Atlantic Division in December.

Then the fall began.

In January, the Celtics posted a 2-15 record, their most losses in a calendar month in franchise history. They had a stretch in February in which they lost six of seven, and currently, they have lost seven of their last eight games.

In college, if he lost, the next game might be several days away, which meant the sting of that defeat could linger. In the NBA, games come fast, some the very next night. In a way, that pace might have helped him to move on quickly, because he has to, or else.

“I don’t know that it makes it any easier to stomach,” he said.



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