C’s earn A’s for their ‘D’
Hard-playing Green impress rival coaches
MIAMI — Brad Stevens absorbed a lot of hard lessons in his first season with the Celtics in 2013-14. When the coach took his team to the playoffs for the first time in 2014-15, the aches doubled.
The Celtics were swept in the first round by Cleveland, a team that included Kyrie Irving, the offensive wizard who led the Celtics to their 16th straight win Monday night in Dallas with a 47-point performance.
But in April 2015 the lessons weren’t about offense.
“We kind of snuck into the playoffs late in the season, and one of the things that was pretty obvious was that we weren’t very versatile defensively,” said Stevens. “We were really hard-playing, we had a lot of guys who were able to do a lot of things, but we weren’t able to switch quite as much.
“You can’t sacrifice the hard-playing part. You have to play hard, you have to play together, and now we’re able to switch some, and read late switches. That’s been at least noticeable here early on. Everyone is trying to take away layups and 3’s, and we’ve got to do that to the best of our ability.”
Offense, and specifically Irving’s virtuosity, made the difference in Dallas. But as exemplified by yet another floor-scraping, ballhawking performance by Marcus Smart, the cement in this team’s foundation is now defense.
Stevens’ fellow coaches have certainly noticed over the last 16 games, with the Celtics leading the NBA with a 95.8 defensive rating.
What amazes Nets coach Kenny Atkinson is that the Celtics are already so wellconnected in the defensive end, despite parting ways with two of their best defenders of the last three years (Avery Bradley and Jae Crowder) and returning only four players from last year’s Eastern Conference finalist.
“I think continuity is so important in this league, knowing your teammate and knowing what they’re going to do,” said the Brooklyn coach, whose team was notch No. 13 in the Celtics’ win streak.
“So that’s impressive,” he said. “I will say Al Horford to me has always been a very underrated defender. And he’s a quarterback out there. I’ve seen it up close how he leads a defense, how he talks on defense. He’s intelligent. He’s athletic. He can play multiple positions. It’s nice when you have a key veteran out there — he’s not Kevin Garnett, but he’s pretty impressive the way he leads.”
Atkinson is partial to Horford. He was the assistant on Atlanta coach Mike Budenholzer’s staff who worked most closely with Horford during his time as a Hawk.
“It’s a big credit to him,” said Atkinson. “He’s changed and I think Brad’s open enough to give him even more responsibility. Sometimes as coaches we hold back guys sometimes. I can even see with Brad he’s doing even more things than he did in Atlanta. I see him handle the ball a lot more at the top of the key and bringing the ball up sometimes. It’s impressive. I know Al was thirsty and hungry to kind of embrace that new big man role. And he didn’t shy from it. That was the thing that impressed me in Atlanta. When we asked him to do more, get out of his comfort zone, he embraced it, rather than some guys they don’t embrace that role. So that’s a real credit to him, and then, again, for Brad giving him the freedom to do those things.”
Beyond Horford’s offensive growth as a new age big man, though, he may defend with more versatility now than any other big man in the league.
And that, from what opposing coaches can see, is where the growth on Stevens’ team has been at its greatest.
“Defensively they’ve made a focus,” said Raptors coach Dwane Casey, whose team fell to the C’s in Game 12 of the streak. “They’re much better than they were last year defensively. They’ve made a commitment to the defensive end with length, with youth. But they’re just doing a heck of a job defensively. And I think that’s been the difference.”
Steve Clifford’s Charlotte team fell to the Celtics in win No. 11, when the Hornets became the 10th opponent in the previous 11 games held under 100 points by the C’s.
“They have built a team around what wins defensively in this league,” said Clifford. “They have size and versatility so they have a bunch of guys that can switch so they stay totally out of rotations as much as any team other than Golden State that I’ve seen. It makes everything simpler, and look at their size they have on the floor. And then when you play centers like Horford who can do the same thing. (Stevens has) done a great job coaching and they’ve done a great job putting this roster together.
“They’ve looked at the league, what’s winning in the league, and they have really versatile, interchangeable parts that can play well at both ends of the floor.”
In that way, they couldn’t be more different from the team swept by Cleveland three years ago.
“Talent,” Atkinson said of what he sees as the biggest difference. “I think they’re an extremely talented team. I think they have veteran talent with Al and Kyrie Irving and they have a slew of young guys that are talented and athletic.
“So they’re playing great, they’re a tough matchup. And what people don’t talk about is how hard they play, how hard they play defensively.”