Brad Stevens has made a habit of exceeding expectations wherever he coaches. The 41-year-old may have saved his best work for this season, however, overcoming the loss of Gordon Hayward and countless other key contributors to put the finishing touches on the best regular season campaign of his Celtics tenure.
Despite that success, the Celtics will begin the postseason this weekend as an afterthought in the Eastern Conference. Stevens will have his work cut off for him to get this undermanned group through a round or two without two of its three best players, but the head coach has managed to maximize the healthy pieces remaining on this roster all year long.
BostonSportsJournal.com caught up with Stevens this week to reflect on the coaching journey he's been through this year, the emergence of youth across the roster, his confidence in the remaining group and scheme choices he's considering as the postseason approaches.
Robb: With now three key rotation players out for the year and hundreds of games lost to injuries up and down the roster, how would you rank this season to date in terms of the challenge you and your staff face in preparing on a nightly basis with the fluctuating lineups?
Brad Stevens:
Robb: How much have you had to adjust your in-game options from the beginning of the year based on the personnel you have available?
Stevens:
Robb: Has that led you to open doors that you wouldn’t have thought of otherwise that could change point of focus for this team down the road?
Stevens:
I'm not even thinking about it. Right now, we have a couple more games and we are one of the very few teams in the league that can say it's all about us. We can focus on that. I'm focusing on what players can do well now that we can up with as much as possible in a game.
Robb: You saw this group at full strength or close to it during training camp. Clearly, your mind is on the present now but do the possibilities long-term with this group excite you, knowing everyone with injuries should have a clean slate coming into next year and you guys still have all kinds of flexibility to improve with trade assets?
Stevens: I'm not really daydreaming about it yet, because we owe it to these guys to stay in this moment. Clearly, the enhanced opportunity is great for them and great for their careers and great exposure to see where they need to go and how far they've come. I think all three of them have come a long way.
Robb: In past years, you have been a proponent of simply letting the cards fall where they lie when it comes to the final standings. However, this year you guys have a reduced margin of error due to injuries. Does the fact change anything about how you approach the game against the Wizards since you could have a say in your first round opponent?
Stevens:
Robb: This will be the fourth postseason for you. We talk all the time about postseason experience for playoffs -- does coaching postseason experience actually matter?
Stevens:
Robb: How much did the confidence level with this group increase during that six-game winning streak last month without Kyrie, Marcus Smart and Daniel Theis, among others and will that matter when it comes to the postseason?
Stevens:
Kadeem (Allen)
Terry (Rozier)
Robb: You have used the 2-3 zone sporadically over the course of your coaching career. What’s been the biggest factor in bringing it out quite a bit with this specific group?
Stevens:
