Stevens Can Finally Move Forward

by **bobheckler** Wed Oct 01, 2014 11:13 am

http://espn.go.com/boston/nba/story/_/id/11620672/boston-celtics-coach-brad-stevens-move-forward-training-camp-begins

Stevens can finally move forward
Updated: September 30, 2014, 10:16 PM ET
By Chris Forsberg | ESPNBoston.com

WALTHAM, Mass. -- The film that Boston Celtics coach Brad Stevens showed his team at the start of training camp Tuesday morning had been ready to roll since mid-August, though it underwent too many revisions before and after that point to truly count.

Since the end of the 2013-14 season in mid-April, Stevens has tortured himself with film study from his team's 25-win campaign and plucked the clips he thought would best demonstrate to his players just what needs to be done this season to take the next step in a rebuilding process that can't go fast enough for anyone involved.

After months of poring over game film, Brad Stevens is happy to be back at practice, saying, "This is the fun part of my job, this is what I've always enjoyed the most -- watching the team."

Stevens, with a white polo tucked into green basketball shorts, beamed as he stood at center court and watched his players get loose for Tuesday's second session. Twenty-four hours earlier, he had sat a podium in the same gymnasium and apologized to reporters for any rambling answers he was giving during the team's media day because he was so focused on the first team practice that loomed.

"I've had [the film cut up] for a while. I've been bored," Stevens deadpanned Tuesday before his team's afternoon session. "I told someone the other day -- they said, 'What are you doing?' And I said, 'Paralyzing myself by analysis right now.'"

Stevens first said he took a week after the season to breathe, then took it back by admitting he cheated and studied film at nights or while traveling during that span. Even if you give him full credit for taking seven days after Boston's season ended, he's still had a mind-numbing 161 days to comb through film for answers to his team's struggles.

That's 3,864 hours to dissect the team's 57 losses. That's 231,840 minutes to wonder how so many games slipped away in the final minute.

There had to have been something better on Netflix to watch.

"It was more about analyzing what didn't go right and figuring out what we could control to make that go better," said Stevens.

There's a renewed confidence in his voice, not that his ever wavered last season. Even from day one of his surprise hiring, Stevens met everything thrown at him head-on during his first NBA season and battled through when the losses piled up.

But you get the sense that he's even more prepared for his sophomore campaign. That he's hell-bent on avoiding the pitfalls that tripped up his team last season, and that he yearns only to put his team in position to win more often.

Stevens gushed with optimism about his team's potential last week at a charity golf tournament. Despite his best attempts to avoid jinxing his team (knocking on wood when the injury subject came up), he woke up Friday to learn his best player -- All-Star point guard Rajon Rondo -- broke a bone in his left hand and would miss as much as the first 10 weeks of the season.

Undeterred, Stevens challenged his team to make progress this season despite the adversity.

"It would have been great if we had the whole team [on the floor for the start of camp], but it's great to be back on the practice court," said Stevens. "This is the fun part of my job, this is what I've always enjoyed the most -- watching the team.

"I talked to them and just hammered on the things that we have to do. We have to come together as a team, we have to be better in the details than we were. And we showed some examples of why, and we showed some examples of when we were really good. And I think if you can take and build off of the good things, and do your best to wrap your arms around what went wrong and change it, you can move forward.

"I think we all know that this was going to be a process from [when Stevens was hired in] July [of 2013] and, at the end of the day, I feel really good about the way that we are moving forward."

Stevens is not disillusioned. He knows that most pundits believe his team will take only a small step forward in terms of wins. One Vegas sports book pegged Boston at 26½ wins on Tuesday (which would give them the fifth-worst record in basketball and fewer than half as many wins as a Cleveland team projected to win a league-best 58 ½ games).

But Stevens knows he can't get caught up in wins and losses. The focus must remain on progress. And progress, to him, starts with the details.

"I told our guys earlier, 'If you get two points better in transition D overall, you have that much better of a chance to win,'" said Stevens. "Then you put yourself up [with top] teams in the league, most of those teams are going to the playoffs. Two points doesn't seem like a lot, but there's only two points that separate the best from the worst sometimes. Maybe not in that particular example, but the details matter. And we talked about this [Monday], not all of us have a high margin for error. So if you have a lower margin of error, the details matter."

For five months, he has scoured old game film trying to find the clips that prove to his team just how much the details matter. With the start of camp Tuesday, there's finally a new batch of practice film to pore over. By the end of next week, there will be four preseason games to obsess about and better opportunities to show this team what's necessary to take the next step.

After five months of driving himself insane, the start of camp was a chance for Stevens and his team to start moving forward.

bob
MY NOTE: Brad made his share of bad decisions on the sidelines last year, absolutely, but he's one of those guys you just know isn't going to let himself make them twice. He sure does work hard. Man, does he ever work hard. Whether that's a more important trait in a assistant coach or head coach will be seen over the couple of years. We're not used to developing coaches too.

.

by **Sam** Wed Oct 01, 2014 1:15 pm

If people really want to be fans rather than just spectators, they'd better get ready to focus on subtleties in the team's performances. Details really matter to Brad, and the Celtics are less likely to make quantum leaps than to progress one baby step at a time. There will be little clues emanating from everywhere—from substitution patterns to players' reactions to adversity to shot selection to defensive positioning to willingness to take big shots to propensity to enable teammates to knowing where mates are on the floor, etc., etc., etc.

Sam

Stevens Can Finally Move Forward

Stevens Can Finally Move Forward

Re: Stevens Can Finally Move Forward