Brad Stevens tells Jared Sullinger - It's all about versatility

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Brad Stevens tells Jared Sullinger - It's all about versatility





Photo by: Ted Fitzgerald
Jared Sullinger walks to the next photo booth at Celtics Media Day Friday.

Saturday, September 26, 2015

By:  Mark Murphy


One byproduct of Jared Sullinger's summer workouts with John Lucas was the guru's insistance that the Celtics forward take his game back into the post.

Sullinger has since said he wants to do just that after two years of attempting, and not always succeeding, to become a better 3-point shooter. But Brad Stevens is sticking to his plan for Sullinger. He wants the big forward to stay versatile, with his offense coming from a variety of places.

Stevens also wants Sullinger to do a better job of taking what the defense gives him.

"My emphasis is always make the right basketball play. It won’t appear in predetermined fashion," Stevens said after this morning's practice. "The game will tell you what to do. There will be opportunities down there, opportunities for open shots, opportunities at the free throw line. He did a lot of good things last year. You have to take advantage of those things."

It's on Sullinger to learn the proper balance, which will change on a nightly basis.

"It’s what’s available – who’s playing you, how they’re guarding you, what your advantage is," said Stevens. "All of our players have to figure that out on a nightly basis, no matter how the game is going. That’s why the more versatile you are, the better." ... Stevens closed out the relatively cerebral morning session with a shooting drill, and plans to increase the intensity tonight.

But harder stuff will come soon enough as the Celtics coach also begins to elevate the learning curve.

"The young guys face the steepest learning curve, but they had a chance to do these things in summer league," said Stevens. "The coaches did an outstanding job of putting in our general concepts. Terry Rozier, R.J. Hunter, Jordan Mickey are ahead of the game because of that summer league experience. With David (Lee) and Amir (Johnson), it’s little things they are picking up on the fly – little habits. But they pick things up so quick. They’re both so intelligent.

"I’ll ramp things up anyway," he said. "We’ll throw a lot at them early and then we’ll break them down. The first day we’ll probably break some of these windows, throw the ball all over the gym. That’s just the way it goes. We always told our people at our first college practice, don’t sit in the first 10 rows because you’re probably going to be hit by a ball. You turn it over a lot early, that’s the way it goes."


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