BOSTON — Three days after the Celtics’ early playoff elimination, Brad Stevens sat down in front of the media for his longest press conference of the year, touching on a slew of questions ranging from the team’s offensive play style, reports that Jaylen Brown is unhappy with the organization, Jayson Tatum’s Game 7 sidelining, and much more.
Here’s the crux of what Brad Stevens had to say — and some of my instant reactions to his comments.
On Tracy McGrady’s recent comments about Jaylen Brown:
Tracy McGrady made headlines late Tuesday night when he shared
on his podcast that Jaylen Brown is frustrated with the Boston Celtics.
“His frustration lies deeply in the organization that we don’t have the details to,” McGrady said. “There’s just been a lot of stuff that I’ve been hearing, just going on with the Boston organization with JB.”
McGrady, a former NBA superstar, is a prominent member of the media and an NBC analyst. But he’s also long been a mentor and close friend of Brown’s, so his words carry more weight than most.
While he didn’t offer specifics, his comments raised eyebrows, particularly in that they came on the heels of a Jaylen Brown saying this was his favorite-ever Celtic season on a Twitch stream on the day following the team’s elimination.
As such, the first question Stevens fielded was about T-Mac’s comments regarding Brown’s grievances.
“I talked to Jaylen Monday a little bit after — real quickly, and it was nothing but positive,” Stevens said. “He has not expressed those frustrations to me. We’ve been here 10 years together. Obviously, I love JB, and everybody around here loves JB, and just like any of our other guys, as we get to the end of the season, I’ll be here, and my door is always open, and if anybody ever wants to come in and talk about it — and talk about their team, their place, whatever the case may be, I’m all ears. And that would be 1-16, not just Jaylen, not just Jayson, not just the guys that have been here. I think it’s really important to be available. So I certainly am, and none of that has been expressed to me.”
My reaction: Would Stevens air out private conversations of frustration from his star player? Probably not. So, while I was glad this question was asked, Stevens’ answer did not provide assurance that the organization and Brown are on good footing. I don’t have insight into Brown’s frustrations, but between the Twitch stream and T-Mac’s comments, there may be something there. I imagine we’ll learn more in the weeks to come.
On the Celtics’ first-round loss to the 76ers:
The Celtics blew a 3-1 lead for the first time in franchise history, but they were also just a few fourth-quarter shots away from advancing in Game 7.
How did Stevens reckon with that duality?
He took it upon himself to address the series loss before even taking any questions.
“I thought we really struggled to generate good looks against Philly,” he said. “I thought they deserved to win. I thought on the other end, they made it really hard on us, and really kind of felt in control in a lot of ways, especially as Embiid got his legs under him. I thought that probably one of the defining things that they did to us in games five through seven was they cleaned up the glass, which had been a real boost for us. Our first-shot offense wasn’t very good the whole series, but we really got a lot of good looks on second chances and off the glass, and I thought they did a really good job. So I think overall, obviously, we had chances to win, and I’m sure there’ll be specific questions about that, but I thought overall, Philly deserved to win, and played a great series and made it hard on us.”
My reaction: I was a little bit surprised at how candid Stevens was about the team’s first-round shortcomings — he clearly felt like Philadelphia was the better team, and that the Celtics didn’t just miss shots — they struggled to generate good looks. That’s a key difference from what Joe Mazzulla maintained after Game 7.
On the Celtics’ play-style and three-point-heavy offense:
Are the Celtics too reliant on three-point shooting? That’s been the million-dollar question for years now, and this year’s postseason performance re-surfaced those conversations. Stevens fielded at least four questions on the topic, and here’s what he had to say.
Do the Celtics shoot too many threes?
“I look at more of each shot individually, and my general feeling watching us play, in really each of the last two playoffs, in the second-round against New York, even against Orlando in the first round, was, we had a hard time generating really good looks on that first shot,” he said. “So, we got to figure out a way to do better in that. And I think that that’s again, one of the things that we’ve got to figure out is how to have more of an impact at the rim. And I think we do need to add to our team to do that. Everybody plays a role in that. But, at the end of that game, Embiid is standing at the rim on all those possessions, or a lot of those possessions, right? And so I thought the shots we took, with the exception of Jaylen’s top-of-the-key-three and the one where you get in the middle of the lane, and then Payton’s open shot, I thought they were really well defended. I thought we struggled to get to where we wanted to go on offense a lot of the series, but it was particularly in those last four games, when those four perimeter defenders who are all very good, had Embiid standing behind them.”
Asked about three-point shooting again, he double-downed:
“The biggest thing is: can we generate looks at the rim?” Stevens said. “Yeah, everybody wants to do that, and every one of us would prefer a dunk over that, over a three. Every single one of us. Those are hard to get, and we struggle to generate them, and so, yeah, we certainly shot some bad ones. I’m not telling you we didn’t. There’s no question about that. But I also thought we shot some really hard shots at the rim, really hard shots in the midrange too, and I don’t necessarily fault anyone for that, other than credit to Philly’s defense, and we’ve got to do a good job as we build out the roster to have more options.”
My reaction: In Brad Stevens’ eyes, this is not an issue of making or missing shots. He doesn’t believe the Celtics have been able to sufficiently generate good looks in their first-shot offense, and clearly said that’s been an issue in their last three playoff serieses. At the same time, it’s evident to me he feels like it’s a reflection of roster shortcomings: “We need to add to our team to do that.” This line of questioning, more than anything, made me feel like Stevens feels that the roster needs significant upgrades.
On Jayson Tatum coming back and then missing Game 7:
Jayson Tatum returned to the lineup 10 months after rupturing his Achilles tendon, was excellent to close the regular season, and was in the midst of a very good first-round series against the 76ers before he injured his knee and had to miss Game 7.
Stevens fielded multiple questions about the left knee stiffness that held him out of the biggest game of the year, providing context on what Tatum was dealing with.
“You probably could see it at the end of Game 6,” Stevens said. “We thought that it would dissipate and be okay the next day. He didn’t do very much on Friday, just rested, and then came in on Saturday morning and tried to do a workout. I watched it, and [he] clearly didn’t feel right. I think it’s not like a long, long-term concern, but it certainly didn’t look right when he was working out, and didn’t feel right. So, it made sense to be smart about that. The obvious answer is, anytime you’re coming back from an injury like he was coming from, there’s a tendency to overcompensate, and there’s probably a little bit of that there.”
He was also asked about Tatum’s heavy minutes in the weeks leading up to Game 7, and about whether that could have contributed to his sidelining.
“We did try to ramp him up for more playoff load and playoff minutes towards the end of the regular season, including a couple of the games there late where we kept him in, even though the games weren’t necessarily close, just to get his minutes up,” he said. “And that’s a part of this kind of load management era that we have a lot of discussions about, because I think Phil Coles and his group do a great job. And a big part of that is they say you have to be ready to play those kinds of meaningful minutes in those kinds of meaningful moments. Do we think that that had an impact on his knee stiffness and the injury in Game 6? Hard to tell, but you can’t cross it off. So we have to look at that. I know that they will, but I feel really comfortable that they worked their butts off to try to get everybody on the court, and they did an amazing job with JT, and he did an amazing job all year, and to be able to play a lot if needed.”
My reaction: This was always a risk, and it’s unfortunate that Tatum had to miss the biggest game of the year. But, I don’t think he or the team has any regrets about the way his return-to-play was handled, and ultimately, there was no real harm done: Tatum did not get seriously hurt, proved to himself he’s still the guy he was before the injury, and should be good to go and fully rested to begin next season.
On Joe Mazzulla’s future with the Celtics:
Stevens was asked about the job that Joe Mazzulla has done over the past four years and what his future holds.
“First of all, I know how hard that job is, and I know all that goes into it,” he said. “And I know he and his staff are putting everything they can into it. And when I say that we struggle to get by — I think that’s, again, that’s — we need to add to our team. So, I think our coaching staff, like all of us, can continue to improve and get better. That said, I think they’re very good. And we need to continue to provide them the resources to grow, and to get better, and to continue to be the best that we can be. I don’t think we can ignore, and certainly, again, can’t ignore anything, the good and the bad. But there was a lot of growth this year, and I thought that there [were] a lot of things that we can build off of, even though that ending was disappointing.”
My reaction: I don’t think Joe Mazzulla is on the immediate hot seat, and Stevens said multiple times that the coaching staff did a good job. That being said, this was not a ringing, resounding endorsement (he could have gone further in discussing Joe’s coaching tenure positively), and it’s clear that Stevens expects Mazzulla — like everyone — will get better.
