Even although he’s not roaming the sidelines anymore, Brad Stevens can’t assist however view the Celtics’ season so far by the lens of a coach.
So, because the Celtics torched the NBA by the primary quarter of the season with an unstoppable offense, the previous coach and now president of basketball operations didn’t need to get forward of himself – naturally.
“Whenever you have a hot start, you’re like, ‘Ugh, God,’ ” Stevens mentioned. “This is just like being up 20 in the first quarter, right? It’s just part of it.”
The Celtics, after that scorching begin, have lastly gone by the latter. They entered Friday’s sport in opposition to the Timberwolves having misplaced 5 of their earlier six video games after dropping 5 instances of their first 26 video games. Their offense has taken a step again from a historic tempo. They’ve appeared something however flawless.
Stevens isn’t involved, identical to he wasn’t getting carried away with the beginning. He described this two-week stretch as a “little bit of a rut.” It’s nothing he hasn’t seen earlier than, even groups just like the Celtics with championship aspirations, and he mentioned the secret is how they reply to this take a look at of adversity.
“When you have a three-game blip like we have right now where we haven’t played very well or a two-week deal where we haven’t played very well, I’ve seen a lot of good to great teams do that,” Stevens mentioned Friday morning at Celtics shootaround earlier than their sport in opposition to the Timberwolves.
“There are ups and downs throughout the year,” he later mentioned. “We’ve shown ourselves to be a capable team. I think we’re at our very best when the ball is flying around, which is not a surprise, and when we’re really locked in and active into the ball on defense. … I think that ultimately, we can look and we can be really good and the key is as you go through the down times, not to get down on yourself, not to lose confidence, and just recenter that this is how we’re good, this is what makes us good, and go from there. If we can’t do that, then maybe look for tweaks that hopefully give our roster a better chance to maximize itself.”
From a macro stage, that’s additionally Stevens’ job now as he balances what he’s seen approaching the halfway level of the season and applies that to methods he can bolster the Celtics of their championship pursuit. While the commerce deadline is greater than six weeks away, and the C’s – who’re nonetheless title favorites – aren’t prone to want main modifications, Stevens is greater than keen so as to add to this roster if he must.
“When I was coaching I always told the guys, ‘Let the game tell you what to do,’ ” Stevens mentioned “Well, let the game tell us what to do over the next couple of months. Like any other thing, I’ve gotta be able to take a step back, I’ve gotta be able to sift through what’s a blip and what’s real. But listen, we want to win. There’s no question about it. We have a really good team and hopefully we are playing great over the next couple of months but we’ll evaluate that and we’ll make the decisions that right or wrong we think may give us the best chance of winning.”
No change in Mazzulla’s standing
Stevens mentioned the Celtics haven’t had current conversations about Joe Mazzulla’s title. Mazzulla stays the Celtics’ interim head coach, and that standing is prone to keep no less than for the foreseeable future.
“We haven’t really even like talked about it recently,” Stevens mentioned. “Our focus has been on how to make this team and staff and give everything we need to make sure we’re as good as we can be. He’s running the show. The title is the title and we’ll have updates at a later date on all that other stuff. But he’s doing a good job and he’s running it like the head coach runs it.”
Stevens expressed nice confidence when he named Mazzulla the interim head coach on the eve of coaching camp after the Celtics issued a season-long suspension to Ime Udoka. Mazzulla has delivered on Stevens’ religion to this point, particularly within the face of distinctive and unprecedented circumstances after being thrust into the job – his first time as an NBA head coach – to guide a group with championship aspirations that was immediately coping with disaster.
“It’s been really good. It’s been really good,” Stevens mentioned. “Every 20 video games that you just coach within the NBA, you’re simply getting higher and higher and higher. Just even like taking a look at the place we began from the beginning of coaching camp, the management, the group, the way in which that everyone embraced him, he embraced everybody else. He’s very open to individuals. To the completely different concepts that they’ve. Maybe too open, proper, at instances? Cause there’s 1,000,000 of them coming at him directly.
“But he’s been great and his staff’s been great. That’s something that probably doesn’t get talked about enough. I think that was a unique thing for everybody and the staff just came in and did their job to adding to winning. That’s what we have to do. Everybody in this building has a role, we all have to play it as well as we can to give ourselves a chance to win.”
Smart return
Marcus Smart, who missed Wednesday’s loss with a non-COVID sickness, returned to the Celtics’ beginning lineup on Friday. Rob Williams, nevertheless, was absent from Friday’s sport as a consequence of a non-COVID sickness.
Source: www.bostonherald.com
