Robb: It's time for Brad Stevens to hold the Celtics more accountable

It’s hard to find precedent for the situation that Brad Stevens is dealing with during this season. He’s overseeing one of the deepest depth charts in the league, which features a host of young players that thrived in bigger roles last year and are now playing less while also trying to establish themselves and earn a future payday. He also has a former All-Star returning from a catastrophic injury that is nowhere close to his peak form 56 games into the regular season. Then, there’s the shadow of an Anthony Davis pursuit looming over the team’s youngsters heading into the summer, which would likely involve several players being shipped away. That, combined with the suddenly uncertain long-term future of Kyrie Irving, puts the head coach in a challenging spot to put it kindly.

There’s been in-fighting, pushing matches on the benches, accusations of selfish play, a call for a more veteran leader by the team’s best player, and several scathing public critiques by a few of the older members on the roster.

Trying to make sense of it all is Stevens, who has been dealt this challenging hand by Danny Ainge. He’s stuck with it now, too, after Ainge elected to stand pat with this group in the wake of 10 wins in 11 games ahead of the trade deadline. Shaking things out in a major way may have been a bigger consideration if the Davis derby didn’t loom this summer. However, it’s clear Ainge wanted to keep all of his assets intact for July 1, which limited any potential tweaks at the deadline.

So now it’s up to Stevens to get this group on the same page and playing their best basketball of the season through the final 26 games of the regular season and into the playoffs. For every single year of his Celtics career, it’s safe to say he’s maximized the talent he has been handed, but that streak has come to a halt in the 2018-19 season. The players deserve the lion’s share of the blame for underachieving, particularly in the first 20 games, but Stevens did not help matters on that front.

He was late to make a change to a starting five that wasn’t clicking early on, which potentially cost the Celtics some wins over the first 20 games of the year. A necessary adjustment was made but now it’s clear some other moves might be needed to get this group back on track. Let's look at a few issues that will need to be addressed by the head coach in the coming days. 

Marcus Morris has been slumping for about a month now. He’s shooting 41 percent from the field and 30 percent from 3-point range in the last 15 games. His defense has been lackluster and he’s fallen back to earth a bit after carrying this team for much of the first few months. Apparently, he’s not having fun either. Stevens has not adjusted his minutes to account for this reality. While pulling him from the starting lineup may not be the answer, a minutes decrease has to be a consideration.

Stevens has stuck with giving big minutes to Gordon Hayward on a nightly basis, despite his iffy splits (25 percent from 3 in his last 15 games). He’s played well in flashes (19 points on Saturday night) but he has not been required to earn his big minutes as much as his fellow bench mates, getting the nod in crunch time over teammates that have been playing better in several contests. Stevens needs to stop treating Hayward like he's on another level and just go with the guy that gives the Celtics the best chance to win on any given night. Some nights that could be him, but he's played far more than he's earned at this point.

There’s also been a hesitancy by Stevens to go deeper into the end of his depth chart, compared to past years. Semi Ojeleye has been glued to the bench for most of the past month while the team’s defensive numbers have dipped. Good things generally happen when Ojeleye is on the court (plus-20 in the last two games in which he’s played 10-plus minutes). Yet, when the C’s were self-destructing on defenses over the past two games, Ojeleye did not get on the floor. Last year felt like a time where Ojeleye would get turned to more in spots like we saw on Saturday. Now, with more established players in the mix that Stevens is trying to keep appeased and engaged, the opportunities haven’t been there as much for Ojeleye.

The same can be said for Brad Wanamaker’s role. He’s a lot less talented and flashy than Rozier, but he also makes fewer mistakes. He’s not going to take a bad shot, he’s going to find the open man in the pick-and-roll and his defense at times can be better than Rozier. Yet, he doesn’t sniff minutes unless a guard is out of the lineup, even on nights other guys are struggling.

Game management hasn't been Stevens' strength this year, either. When bench guys are thriving over the starters (like the Lakers loss on Thursday), Stevens has been opting to go back to his veterans instead of riding the hot hand at times. Pressing the right buttons on that front for his non-stars (i.e. going with whoever has it going on any given night) needs to be a bigger consideration. Strong play must be rewarded, even if egos get hurt in the process.

With 26 games remaining and the Celtics firmly entrenched in the No. 5 seed, the time for appeasing egos is over. No one in the rotation is going to be benched outright but it’s time for Stevens to have a shorter leash with guys, especially when the same mistakes are made in a game over and over. Luckily, that’s a realization he looked ready to accept after Saturday’s loss.

“I think every year your trends change as the year goes on, both good and bad,” Stevens said. “It is disappointing to have 20 points leads in consecutive games and lose that’s for sure. Again, I think I need to look at myself first and figure out what I can do to help that not happen. If that means we need to play different rotations, call different things, start differently in quarters than we are, whatever the case may be there’s and answer out there and we just have to find it.”

With a challenging schedule looming in the next few weeks, featuring road games against the Bucks, Sixers, Raptors and Warriors, things will get ugly if this team can’t find consistency, something that has been absent on the road all year long. On a team that’s been searching for leadership, it’s on Stevens to find the formula that works in what stands out as his toughest coaching job to date.