Stevens takes a fluid approach with big man rotation

The beauty of playoff basketball – and the distinction between Brad Stevens’ first round approach against Philadelphia and now against Toronto – lies in the adjustments.

And nowhere is the Celtics coach swapping out bodies more than in his big man rotation. Enes Kanter had one of his best sequences of the season coming off the bench against Joel Embiid. Robert Williams played the same role in Game 1 against Toronto, and not only defended well, but didn’t miss a shot in his 5-for-5 performance.

“The Philly matchup was one where we decided to go away because we thought Kanter was – Kanter might have been our best option in that series, including (Daniel) Theis,” Stevens said before Game 2 last night. “So I think we’re going to keep playing that way, and playing to the strengths of our team. It’s OK if guys make mistakes.”

That’s an allowance that especially has to be made for the young Williams, who nevertheless has shown great growth since games started in the Orlando bubble.

“There’s enough time in between games to work on things,” said Stevens. “I joked about our practice time yesterday, but he spent about 25 minutes after working on the things he needs to be ready for the day. Things will always present themselves – doesn’t mean you’re going to play a perfect game. I think he’s done a lot of good things since he’s been in the bubble.”

Family time

In a video that quickly went viral over social media, Raptors guard Fred VanVleet welcomed his wife and two young children to the team hotel on Monday.

Though only a smattering of family members have joined the Celtics thus far – more are anticipated if the team advances to the conference finals – Stevens doesn’t anticipate so much as a ripple of disruption.

The Celtics coach was one of the early advocates among NBA coaches for families being included in the league’s bubble plan.

“It doesn’t change it for us at all,” said Stevens. “Just keep preparing game-by-game and doing what we can and play as well as we can. My personal belief is, as people come in and ultimately people get to see their loved ones, family, or guests, then that’s terrific because it just makes it a little more like normal.”

Nick Nurse, asked if the addition of families would help his players, said, “I think it’ll help ’em, yup.

“I don’t know if it’s difficult because I’m really happy for them,” said the Toronto coach. “I’m not going to say I was close to shedding a tear yesterday, but it wasn’t, it was more of being happy for them. I think, I’m not, I think it’s a great situation for them, that’s all I can kind of comment on.

“I think they reacted good. Man, especially when you’ve got small children, you know how much they can change when you haven’t seen them for a five-day road trip, let alone a two-week road trip, let alone a couple month sabbatical here that we’re on. So I think that there was a lot of, if you’re a parent at all, it’s a lot of amazement. The vocabulary, and the actions, and the growth, and all that kind of stuff, so pretty interesting.”

Pool party

Though the wrong mix of players could lead to catastrophic results in the bubble, the Celtics have no such concerns.

The latest “candid” video moment was of Jaylen Brown and Kanter, each on one side of Tacko Fall, guiding the rookie big man through the pool as he kicked and paddled during a swimming lesson.

“We’ve made it a priority as a group in this environment, for sure,” Stevens said of the unity element. “I think you always want it to be the case anyways, but this environment demands it just because it’s so unique. So we’ve got a good group. They’re well-intentioned as far as we all know we’re not going to be perfect but we’re just going to play as hard and as well as we can and let the chips fall where they may. It’s been fun to be back in the gym when we’ve gotten that opportunity, and I think, again, because of all that’s going on and coming off the pandemic with four months off, I thought just being back in a gym playing a kids game was a good thing.”

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/2QJGTLh