In unpredictable Eastern Conference playoff race, Boston Celtics relying on steady force: Brad Stevens

http://www.masslive.com/celtics/index.ssf/2015/04/in_unpredictable_eastern_confe.html#incart_story_package



In unpredictable Eastern Conference playoff race, Boston Celtics relying on steady force: Brad Stevens







Boston Celtics head coach Brad Stevens watches from the bench during the first half of an NBA basketball game against the Indiana Pacers in Boston Wednesday, April 1, 2015. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)


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

on April 02, 2015 at 6:15 PM





BOSTON - As Brad Stevens strode toward the table where he gives all his postgame press conference at the TD Garden, two teams in New York were finishing a game that would impact the Boston Celtics.

Around the same time Stevens reached the microphone, Brook Lopez tipped an offensive rebound over the rim, caught it near the opposite corner of the backboard and sent the Brooklyn Nets past the New York Knicks. The near-disaster for Brooklyn sent another reminder that the Eastern Conference playoff race is a wonky, unpredictable mess where fortunes can soar or crash at any time. On this night, Kelly Olynyk is a street fighting Cyclops, Tyler Zeller is a Hibbert-crushing force, Evan Turner nets his third triple-double since the trade deadline, and the Celtics sit a half-game back in the playoff race. By next week, who knows.

If every opponent takes the rest of the regular season seriously, the Celtics will have a tough remaining schedule. Six of their last seven games are against playoff teams, including two meetings apiece against Cleveland and Toronto. According to an ESPN statistical formula, the Celtics had a 44.7 percent chance to make the postseason as of Thursday afternoon. Like anything else in this race, that could rise or fall by morning.

Standing in a maze, Stevens remains a picture of steadiness. No single force has kept the Celtics alive, but he has discovered ways to make an ever-changing team difficult to play. In the second half of Wednesday night's win against Indiana, he chose to stick with the floor-spacing duo of Olynyk and Jonas Jerebko in the frontcourt - keeping Zeller on the bench despite a 17-point first half. The Celtics spread out Indiana's slow big men and switched almost every screen. Later, Pacers coach Frank Vogel said twice, "Their style of play won out."

The Celtics entered the fourth quarter with a six-point lead that felt dangerously thin. A loss would have put Boston 1.5 games back in the East and given Indiana the series tiebreaker. Isaiah Thomas was struggling through one of his worst games with his new team. He never shook his funk, but Olynyk showed confidence, Jae Crowder did that thing where he makes a series of big plays, Jonas Jerebko threw in a sweeping sky hook, and the Celtics yanked away a comfortable win.

Afterward, Olynyk addressed reporters with his left eye just about swollen shut, a pregame gift from teammate Shavlik Randolph. Olynyk said he felt like he was wearing sunglasses and guessed he could only see out of the bottom third of his eye. He had been considered "very unlikely" to play and needed stitches just hours before tip-off, but scored 19 points, including 10 in the fourth quarter. The performance felt oddly fitting for these Celtics. Even after taking shots to the face - or trading key contributors, or losing critical pieces to injury - they keep giving themselves a chance, black eyes and all.

Ironically enough, Stevens sees no additional daily benefit of being involved in a playoff race. It's not so much that he thinks the experiences of the next couple of weeks will be worthless. It's just that he thinks his team should behave the same as last season, when it was just trying to finish out the year strong.

"From my standpoint, every game has always mattered," he said. "You always go into it because as a basketball person, you just want the chance to compete. And you see a game, and it goes down to the wire, and you're trying things, and maybe you find a way to get a win, maybe that galvanizes you for the future. Even in those games where playoff implications aren't a part of it. But yeah, it's great. For me, the biggest thing that's great is the progress that's being made. As we're in the middle of this and we have our ups and downs, it kind of gives you peace that we're moving in the right direction."

The obvious catch there: the Celtics could be moving in any number of directions. They have set themselves up to take advantage of any major opportunities, whether those come in free agency, trade talks or the draft, but, playoffs or not, they still feature a host of rotation players and no obvious star.

Stevens has maintained that while he knows the basic playoff picture, he does not care about variables out of his control, such as other teams' schedules down the stretch. Day after day, he stands in front of reporters who want to know how he's handling the postseason race. Just like he handles anything else, basically: with a focus on daily improvement.

Stevens would like to make the playoffs, certainly, but figures if it comes, it will be a byproduct of learning. The swings can be frustrating, but he believes the Celtics took a lot from getting "buried" by the Los Angeles Clippers this weekend, just like they grew from a wire-to-wire win against Charlotte on Monday.

"Now there's a lot to build off," Stevens said, "because you feel like you've created this mindset of, it's OK that yesterday didn't go perfect. We're going to make today better. For me, if you're not striving to be your best every day, it's no fun to coach, it's no fun to play."

As they build, the Celtics are operating almost as two teams in one. The starters can be a frustrating throwback to the days when midrange jumpers were considered cool. Bench combinations strut in to form a free-flowing group of shooters and passers that is more in tune with the new-look NBA. Stevens prefers the second way of playing, and it's what has given these Celtics a bit of an identity.

"He's done a sensational job," Vogel said. "He studies the game. He's using a lot of the things that have worked for how the league is changing with five 3-point shooters. LeBron and Miami did it for a couple of years when they were down there. Atlanta's done it. A few different teams are trying to play that way. It's challenging for certain teams like ourselves to guard situations like that, so you have to credit him for being innovative and getting the most out of his group."

Asked about the temptation of a college job earlier this season, Stevens said he would like to stay with the Celtics as long as they want him. Wednesday, the topic came up again. Maybe his answer was different this time for another reason. Maybe it was because he knows he has established himself as one of the league's best young coaches.

"I'll be in Boston," he said.

Just like that. Four words. No qualifiers necessary. Only in the Eastern Conference is a critical game decided by a 7-foot-tall Canadian who can barely see out of one eye. Only in Boston is Evan Turner a regular triple-double threat. And only in their coach do the Celtics know exactly what they have.



bob



.

This was the first game this season in which I felt the Celtics approached the contest with a "work as usual" attitude.  Not too high, certainly not too low.  Just going out, playing their roles as best they can, and doing what they're becoming used to doing—winning.  I loved that matter-of-fact feeling (even if I was the only one experiencing it) because it suggested to me that the term "over-achieving" is in the back mirror, in favor of a panorama of positive expectations among the team.  With persistent effort but without persistent anxiety, they're more likely to take the flow of the game in stride and not to allow draining emotions to deter them from their objective.

Sam