Brad Stevens is not one to publicly flog his team. He is generally careful, at least when the lights are on and cameras and microphones are recording.
During games he paces the sidelines and is responsible for more expletives than his television demeanor lets on. Players in the past have relayed the coach in their practices has a different edge than the one we see. But on camera, he is a steadfastly polite Midwesterner, which makes whatever pointed comments he does make resonate a little more.
On Wednesday night, after the Celtics lost to a sub-500 team for the 15th time this season, Stevens dropped an understatedly harsh ‘I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed' on his team when discussing what he’s looking for as the season wraps up this coming weekend.
“You’re looking for guys that will separate themselves just by doing their jobs hard and well and reliably on (defense), because that’s what we’re gonna need,” he said. “We have not been consistent in that regard, and it’s one of the reasons we’re where we are.
“I think that’s probably the most disappointing thing to me about our season. It hasn’t been anything more than just -- we could be better defensively, we could be more physical defensively, we could be more connected defensively, and if we lose guys for any given amount of time, we should be able to still defend, and this team hasn’t been.”
That sentiment has been a hallmark of Stevens' teams. He got a team featuring Isaiah Thomas to be the fourth-ranked defense in the NBA. He had a Kyrie Irving team place first on defense. Aside from his first rebuilding season, Stevens has never seen a team of his finish lower than 13th.
“Talent and offensive capability is not our issue, it’s defensively, we have to set the tone early and we can’t wait for halftime for Brad to give us a speech for us to turn it up,” Tristan Thompson said. “It’s gotta start from jump ball.”
This year’s defense ranks 19th, which is the worst defense in Stevens’ tenure. Did Stevens forget how to coach defense? Did the players who have spent multiple years in his system forget, or have they quit?
Defense is about effort and communication. Last year’s team, which ranked 4th, was the definition of “playing on a string”; when one player moved, everybody moved. It involves trust and, maybe more importantly, repetitions to perfect the chemistry.
This year’s team has neither.
“Even if you have two guys out there busting their tail and playing hard and playing with a level of physicality, if you have other guys who are not following or losing sight of their matchups or just not knowing KYP, know your personnel, it makes it tough out there,” Thompson said. “So for me and a guy like (Marcus) Smart, we try to lead by example, by playing physical and hopefully guys follow and understand that in this league, you’ve got to play with a sense of urgency. You’ve got to kind of be a pit bull. If you come out the gate being physical, it sets the tone early.”
The hopes of the ‘21 Celtics making a long run have faded, but their hopes of being the “nuisance” Stevens talked about are still alive.
It’s not much, but it’s something. And if it’s to become something, someone needs to snatch an opportunity in front of them this weekend.
“You want to try a bunch of different things in a game, but we have so many guys that are young that need to be good at the basics. We’re not,” Stevens said. “So every rep with the basics is very important. We don’t need all of those guys to be playing next Tuesday, but we need one or two of them to be in there playing.”
The Celtics don’t have a chance to do anything significant anymore. Those dreams have given way to the reality of a likely early playoff exit. But they can still give Celtics fans a hook on which to hang their hopes of the future by making some proverbial noise.
There’s only one way for them to do that.
“On the court we just have to turn it up a notch. We have to keep holding each other accountable and push some buttons,” Thompson said. “It’s going to come from within our team. We can’t expect it from anywhere else. Guys understand it’s pretty simple right now. We have the play-in tournament and however the thing is structured we have to win a game and all that other shit they have going on. We have to understand, this is for all the marbles and there’s no re-do’s. We can’t get the season back. Whatever is in front of us we have to attack and know what’s at stake. You’ve gotta have that win or go home mentality.”