Jaylen Brown (tailbone) doesn't practice, Stevens won't commit on starting five

The Celtics got back to work in Boston on Wednesday afternoon after finishing up their toughest schedule stretch of the year over the past two weeks. One player that was unable to take part in what was expected to be a spirited practice session was Jaylen Brown, who is still recovering from a bruised tailbone suffered on Saturday night in Dallas.

"Progressing, not practicing today," Brad Stevens said. "Don’t know anything beyond that."

The Celtics will have a set of back-to-back games this weekend on Friday against the Cavs and Saturday in Minnesota so it's possible the team will play it cautious with Brown and sit him to get another four days of uninterrupted rest before Boston plays again (Thursday night vs. New York). Boston will have one more practice tomorrow afternoon, which will give Brown a good opportunity to test it ahead of a back-to-back.

With Brown's status in question for this weekend, the door remains open to a return to the same starting five that saw plenty of success against New Orleans, featuring Marcus Smart at the two-guard and Marcus Morris at power forward. Stevens acknowledged the group's fine work on Wednesday but came short of declaring that he'll be sticking with them for now.

"Obviously, we’ll take all of that into account," Stevens said. "But the way that we played the other night certainly was encouraging. The problem with starting Marcus Smart is you can’t bring his energy off the bench. He’s a valuable guy in both of those areas for the same reason. Does all the intangible stuff you need to have success. We’re just going to need to play better as a team, and hopefully, we can build off this trip."

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This is a situation where Stevens appears to be overthinking things a little bit. Smart's value in past years has been as a change of pace guy off the bench, but it's evident that slow starts in the first half have been a key part of Boston's problems this year. Trying to preserve Smart for the bench unit when his impact can be greater for other members of the starting group would seem to be counterproductive.

"Again, it’s super-important to our team that he’s in the game, on what he brings to the table from an intangibles standpoint," Stevens said. "In the past, that’s really aided us at the six-minute mark of a game, or in the first quarter, but clearly it aided us the other night at the start, and so we’ll see how it goes from here."

Smart already saw in just one game the kind of impact he had on Kyrie Irving from taking away some of the burdens that he's had to carry with the starting group.

"We can come out early, kind of get things going," Smart explained. "Take a lot of pressure off of guys like Kyrie, who takes up a lot of the offensive things and then having to come down and play defense and shut down somebody like a Jrue Holiday and their starting guards. That's tough on anybody, especially with the way we play and especially the way Kyrie plays. Being able to take the heat off of him on both ends is something."

For a team that has been dealing with inconsistency all year long, the certainty of Smart's sense of urgency in the starting five is something that is worth counting on. It's not going to solve all of Boston's problems but does take one potential issue off the list.

As someone who dealt with losing his own starting job three years ago to Isaiah Thomas in the middle of the season, Smart knows the territory that Brown could be dealing with him if he ends up getting the demotion.

"It can be frustrating for any player," Smart acknowledged. "but, like I said before, we can’t get too high, we can’t get too low. This is a team, like you said, we have a lot of talented guys. Opportunity is gonna come. When it comes, you gotta take it. When somebody else comes, you gotta be there to cheer them on and be a great teammate.

"You have to be able to adapt to it. Just because, like you said, I got hurt and Isaiah started, I couldn’t let that affect how I played when I came in. Some guys would see that as a negative because they had to come off the bench, but you can’t look at it that way. 82 games, it’s a long season, things are going to happen."

Nothing is set in stone for the long-term with this team for now, but Smart has waited his turn long enough right now. He deserves his shot, especially with Brown working his way back from injury. The bench unit has been the better group all year long, so it's time to mix the crucial parts of it in with the starting five.

"Morris is the one that came up with the BWA (bench with attitude) thing, and we bring that attitude and now it’s not just off the bench, it’s in the starting lineup," Smart declared. "We definitely have the same mindset, trying to impose our will on the other team."