Morris has soft spot for Pistons
CELTICS NOTEBOOK
Marcus Morris never will forget the day he discovered he had been traded to the Celtics, because the call woke him up.
His coach at the time, Stan Van Gundy, was on the line. Morris didn’t need a sixth sense to detect a change in fate.
“Yeah, he called me at 6 o’clock in the morning. He could’ve at least let me sleep a little bit. You know if you get a call from Van Gundy at 6 in the morning, you know it’s something,” the Celtics forward said. “So when he called me, I was just hoping it wasn’t that, but it is what it is. It’s the NBA. I love the Celtics. I love the organization. I couldn’t have asked for a better situation.”
But as Morris admitted after his old team beat his new team on Monday night at the Garden, it’s not as if he wanted out of Detroit — not with that coach, or teammates who have come together to form one of the early surprises of the NBA season.
Morris has something bad to compare it to, too. His Pistons experience — and the one he’s now enjoying with the Celtics — stands in great contrast to his beginnings in a confusing situation in Phoenix. The Suns eventually jettisoned an unhappy Morris, and later his twin brother, Markieff. But the ever-communicating Van Gundy showed him a good side of the league.
“A lot different. Stan, everything he told me was the truth. He was always straight up and down with me,” Morris said. “We had conversations, we talked a lot, we had great conversations. In Phoenix, I mean you see the (expletive) going on out there. Nothing has changed. (But) I don’t really want to speak on that. Stan does a great job of just being himself all the time, so I couldn’t have asked for anything better than that.
“I had a lot of love for Detroit, still do. I felt like that was a home for me. They got Avery (Bradley). He’s playing (great) basketball over there. I don’t fault him for any of that. I’ve got nothing but love about that entire organization.”
Van Gundy certainly didn’t want to part with Morris — or let fellow new Celtic and former Piston Aron Baynes leave via free agency. But such is the volatile nature of business in the NBA. “We never had one thought about trading Marcus ever. It was the availability of Avery Bradley,” Van Gundy said. “That’s what it came down to. We were in a situation where we had a free agent 2-guard (Kentavious CaldwellPope) and nothing had been resolved there, and then Avery’s availability came up and Marcus was what was required to get it done. We tried to do it with other people in the deal, so it’s what we had to do to get it done. Marcus and Aron both, I mean, two of my favorite guys, really tough, unselfish, team-oriented guys. You couldn’t ask for more. Especially when I look back a few years down the road, and you’re looking back and saying, ‘Who is your favorite group of guys you’ve coached?’ Those two guys will be in that group.”
Youthful 1-2 punch
The Celtics go up against the best rookie/second-year player combination in the league tomorrow night, when Philadelphia comes in with Joel Embiid and Rookie of the Year front-runner Ben Simmons.
But based on the way Celtics rookie Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown have kicked off the 2017-18 season, there isn’t another team beyond the Sixers with this kind of young combination.
“Obviously, with all of the moves that we made, it was pretty clear that they were both going to have to play and probably play quite a bit,” Celtics coach Brad Stevens said of his thinking going into this season. “It was pretty evident in the first week of practice that this was pretty unique as far as two young guys being able to impact us in a good way.
“You never know how that’s going to translate when the lights come on, but in the exhibition games, you saw glimpses of it. Especially that game where we sat all those guys and the young guys played against Philly. I thought that was kind of one of those moments where you knew that those guys were probably ahead of their age and benefit from now having Kyrie (Irving) and Al (Horford) that draw all the attention on the court.
“But the one thing that I will say that we talked a lot about prior to the draft was that it was pretty enticing to have Jayson Tatum paired next to Jaylen Brown. That seemed to make sense with their versatility, their length and athleticism.”
Take a break
The Celtics are in the midst of a rare two-day gap without a game, with an off day yesterday and an actual practice scheduled for today.
“I’m looking forward to (two days at home),” Irving said. “Every other day, we’ve been playing, so I’m looking forward to it. I’m going to take full advantage of it. So just to kind of restart — well, not restart, but get your body back right, mentally kind of get away from the game for a day or two. And then lock right back in.”