Brad Stevens Leaves First Mark in the Playoffs

Brad Stevens shut down the minuscule amount of critics he had with a remarkable playoff run

It truly is rare to see such a young coach in the NBA get the respect that has surrounded Brad Stevens, even before he had ever won a playoff series. Stevens was step one in the Boston Celtics rebuild, and he has done things with this young team that no one else in the NBA would be able to accomplish.

Before this season, the one criticism that you kept seeing from the media about Stevens was that he was just a regular season coach, and did not make the adjustments in the playoffs to elevate his team the way he did in the regular season. Stevens got his roster to overachieve each season he has been with the team, and reached the playoffs earlier than any rebuilding team is supposed to be able to.

Stevens has those out of time out plays and remarkably effective offensive system, and a lot of people noticed him. Up until these playoffs, people noticed him but they still doubted him. This is a show me league and independent of the talent at his disposal, Stevens still had to prove that he can win in the playoffs. Seeing the way Stevens used his talent would only ever be enough, without winning nothing Stevens does will be validated.

The good news is that no one will be saying Stevens cannot have success in the playoffs. You could say that he only did what was expected, making the Eastern Conference Finals as the number one seed, but that is a vicious reduction of what transpired this season.

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First of all, that number one overall seed is somersetting that no one thought was possible all the way up until the final days of the season. Holding that against Stevens is laughable at this point, and when the media sent out the barrage of worst number one seed of all time, that made it seem as though this was a Celtics team that had no business facing off against the Cavaliers for a spot on the finals, even if they had home court throughout.

The Washington Wizards had the high end talent of John Wall and Bradley Beal that was supposed to put pressure on LeBron James. Too bad they couldn’t manage to get passed the overachieving and overrated starless Celtics squad, who threw that home court in everyone’s face with their four wins coming at home against them.

The Toronto Raptors sold out, and got the missing pieces that were supposed to fill the last holes in what should have been looked at as a complete team. Then they folded in an utterly pathetic and embarrassing way. They did lose one of their stars, but the Celtics once again demonstrated their superiority with how much better they responded to losing their point guard.

Getting the one seed alone made this the most impressive season in Stevens’ young tenure, then shutting those critics down by being the best competition in the East for the Cavaliers made this a truly masterful season from a coach that appears to do nothing less. For a lot of teams, reaching where the Celtics are right now would be the height of the rebuild. For the Celtics, it is barely scratching the surface.

Take all of that into account, and you still do not have the most impressive aspect of Stevens’ system these playoffs. It is not just that the Celtics got to where they were, it is how they did it, and it is the often incomprehensible but nevertheless brilliant approach by Stevens that transformed what this team could do in each and every series.

The lineup issues became an immediate problem in the playoffs. It only took two games for Stevens to change his starting rotation, and what followed is one of the most adjustment filled rotations you will ever see.

It is not just that Stevens changed around his starting lineup, and he did plenty of that. Rotating between Amir Johnson and Gerald Green to try and find that spark while preserving the second unit drove some people mad, but Stevens made sure to mitigate the detrimental impact of having an uncertain fifth starter.

The starting lineup changes continued later on also. Stevens did not have much choice with Marcus Smart, but he also opted to start Kelly Olynyk ahead of Johnson when he returned against the Cavaliers. To the bitter end, that final starting position is something Stevens had to maneuver around in each and every game, but he never let it become their downfall despite some of the worst front court depth to fill in in the NBA.

It was then the in game rotation adjustments that reveal the height of Stevens’ greatness in these playoffs. Without taking into account any context, his rotation looked completely random. Not a single player would play the same minutes from one game to a next, and certain players could go from a 20 minutes role to banishment to the bench. Everything was changing at all times, and each player bought into it completely, because you better believe there was a method to his madness.

Thomas would go from playing entire firsts, to sitting for the closing five minutes, to returning for the final two minutes if Stevens wanted a good close. The fourth was the same, Stevens allowed the play of the second unit to dictate when he needed Thomas the most.

Gerald Green, Jaylen Brown and Terry Rozier all went from completely nonexistent roles, to playing some of the most important minutes, and they went back and fourth between the two all playoffs long.

Stevens took a great risk with this approach as he threatened any continuity of their lineups. Stevens was putting out combinations that had never played together before, but every time he did that there was a reason for it.

Stevens took a look down his roster, understood better than anyone else what each of those players were capable of, and he adapted his rotation on the fly making sure that any time he put a player on the court they were in a position to succeed. Stevens may have been throwing darts, but those were meticulously calculated launches that were anything other than fluke.

It is not a coincidence that so many different bench players stepped up in so many different ways for Stevens. There would never be consistency, but Stevens made sure that he did everything in his power to help his players succeed, even if that meant not knowing what their minutes would be like.

It is unfathomable that Stevens was able to do these things so seamlessly, but he managed to figure out what he needed out of his players to beat the team ahead of him, and he made sure to adapt any approach when the circumstances changed.

For a lot of people, the perception of Stevens did not change. His ability to evaluate and understand talent, and to know how and when to use and optimize that talent is nothing new for him. That being said, for anyone that needed Stevens to prove himself on the biggest stage, he once again did more than anyone should expect out of a coach at this stage of his career.

Stevens understands that the standards in Boston are different, and the good news is that there is not another person in the world who better understands what this team needs to do in order to reach that goal, and you better believe that no one else can get them there faster.

Next: Celtics Offseason Simulation

Stevens will have a lot more obstacles to overcome and a lot of them will prove to be more difficult than anything he has ever seen. This postseason, however, Stevens has taken the very few amount of critics he had out there, and shut them down in a way that even his biggest fans would not have predicted.