Ex-mates welcome back Bradley
CELTICS NOTEBOOK
Terry Rozier is looking forward to this evening’s Celtics game against the Detroit Pistons. He would love to get into it hard on both ends of the floor with Avery Bradley.
He’ll also be sure to find time to give his former teammate a hug and thank him.
“AB’s just a class act,” Rozier said. “He was never too high, never too low. He’s a great guy, especially off the court. I remember me coming in my rookie year, and I was just going through so many tough times. I wasn’t playing and then getting sent to the D-League. He was always there just giving me words of encouragement. He was just great — somebody to have in your ear, somebody to have in your corner.”
Rozier has honored Bradley in probably best way possible.
“That’s something that’s really stuck with me,” he said of the talks from the veteran, “so when I see guys like (Abdel) Nader, who aren’t getting as much time and not knowing when they’re going to get in, I think about Avery’s message. I want to pass it down to them, you know, tell them, ‘You’ve just always got to be ready, man. You know your opportunity’s going to come.’ Avery was great like that. I’m glad that I’m finally going to get to see him and get to play against him.”
The Celtics had come to count on Bradley for stability, and it was a fact of free agent numbers-crunching life that they had to send him to Detroit (with a second-round draft pick for Marcus Morris) to make room for Gordon Hayward.
“Huge part of our team, the huge part of our organization,” said coach Brad Stevens of Bradley. “When we had to make that move after Gordon signed, you know, those are really difficult things. Any time you’re getting guys that are really, really talented, it usually comes at a cost in professional sports. There’s both the cost of a guy that’s been on your team and the emotional cost of a guy that you’ve been around every day.”
Bradley is averaging a career-best 16.8 points on 44 percent shooting for the Pistons. He also has 1.4 steals, 3.1 rebounds and 1.9 assists while playing 31.5 minutes per game.
“It’s great to see him playing well. He’s having a tremendous season, and they’re a heck of a team,” said Stevens.
As with Rozier, Bradley was a mentor to Marcus Smart.
“Oh, he was huge,” said Smart, who spent three years with him. “Both of us being defenders, real aggressive defenders, he just talked me through things since I came here my rookie year. He really helped me get through what I needed to get through.
“When I first got here, he was really one of the first guys that kind of showed me the ropes. That was huge for me.”
And when Bradley was traded last July, Smart got in touch right away.
“I texted him and just kind of told him that, you know, ‘I’m going to miss you, but good luck. And keep doing what you’re doing, and everything’s going to work out for you.’ I love him and vice versa,” Smart said.
No excuses
The Celts finished up a run of three games in four nights in three cities with Saturday’s comeback win at Indiana. But Stevens isn’t buying fatigue as a reason why the club stumbled out of the gate against the Pacers, falling behind by 13.
“I mean, hey, we’re trying to focus as much as we can on the next task,” said Stevens, “and, you know, we get taken care of pretty well in traveling from city to city. We eat well, we sleep well, and we get ready for the next game.”
And as for winning the last two after having their 16-game winning streak snapped, Stevens said, “I’m not a big believer in losing refocuses you. We needed to play better through a lot of those wins, and we still need to play better.”
On the mark
Rozier has come alive in the last two games after averaging 8.7 points on 33.7 percent shooting in the season’s first 19 games. He hasscored 23 and 17 points, respectively, in the last two wins, shooting 15-for-20 (7for-10 on 3-pointers).
“I’m just trying to be aggressive, that’s all,” he said. “Just trying to play my game. Credit goes to a lot of my teammates. They believed in me even when I was going through a slump, and they do a lot of good things to get me open to make those shots.”
Smart had a nice bounceback against the Pacers, too. He came into that game shooting 26.5 percent from the floor for the season and proceeded to make 7-of-8 shots (15 points).
Said Al Horford: “We talked (Friday) night, and I told him, ‘Hey, you’re doing things the right way. You’re working and preparing every day. Everybody goes through this. It’s hard.’ He stuck with it, and I was just happy to see him make those shots and take his time.”