Smart keeps level head
Tells young Celtics to not read into hype
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The good news for the Celtics is that they’ve won 10 straight games.
The bad news is they’ve had to overcome some sloppy play to succeed in some of them lately.
The better news is they understand this and still have a lot of room for improvement. More will be required as they move on from a tight win over the wobbly Warriors to meet the Kings this afternoon. After that, Phoenix, the Clippers and Denver are on the itinerary before they get to go home.
So, yeah, it’s about to get more difficult.
As the 10-1 Celts have understandably begun to draw more attention from the national media, Marcus Smart advised against players becoming consumers of the praise.
“I hope nobody’s reading that,” Smart told the Herald. “I don’t think this team is. It’s just what it is. We do a good job of fighting and being resilient and finding a way.”
The Celtics had to look hard to find that way after falling behind by 15 points early against Draymond Green and what’s left of Golden State after injuries and departures.
“I thought we competed after the first 10 minutes,” said Brad Stevens as he headed out of the new Chase Center late Friday night. “Defensively we were pretty good. Offensively, I just thought we had too many plays that are, you know, shoot yourself in the foot plays. We also missed some shots, but that’s part of it. It’s hard to get great shots against anybody anyways, but especially when you’re on a streak. So you have to just hunker down and be that much more focused.”
Stevens doesn’t think his troops are getting a little pleased with themselves and maybe buying into some of the hype.
“We’ve got a lot of guys that haven’t done this before,” he said. “We’ve got some really good players that have been very consistent and have carried us. … And then we have a lot of guys that are playing for the first time or playing bigger roles for the first time that have done a lot of good things, but they need those stabilizers — and the four guys (Smart, Kemba Walker, Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum) are real stabilizers.”
A fifth such player, Gordon Hayward, is on the shelf for the next several weeks with a broken left hand, and the Celts will have to tighten their game and withstand being a target without him.
“I wouldn’t say we’re not focused,” said Smart. “I’d just say we’re playing against a lot of teams who are trying to give us our first (streak-ending) loss and who are coming out and playing. We’re coming in with a great record, so they don’t have anything to lose in a sense. It’s human nature that we just got off the plane, first game on the West Coast. It was a little sloppy. We’ve definitely got to clean it up. I wouldn’t say it’s because we’re not focused. I’ll just say teams are doing a really good job of coming out with the energy, and we’ve just got to do a good job each and every night we play on making sure that we can control it.
“Like Brad said, every team is rooting for us to win, because they want to be the ones to knock us off. So every team we play, it’s going to be like that. Their adrenaline’s up. Their energy’s up. They have a lot of confidence. We’ve just got to continue to play and tighten things up. We know that. We know we’re small, so we’ve got to rebound more. We understand everybody’s got to get in there. We’ve got a lot of bangs and bruises, but that’s still no excuse. We’ve still got to get in there. If you’re in the game, you’ve got to be ready to go. We have to just clean up a few things and we’ll be OK.”
One thing the Celtics don’t have to fix is Smart. Walker made an interesting point in his response to a question about the difficulties against the Warriors.
“It was tough,” he said. “Those guys came out (and) they played extremely hard. They played well. They made shots. For the most part, I thought we never got rattled, which was really cool to be a part of. We never lost composure. We never lost poise. Yeah, man — these guys just stay so composed.
“Smart, he was big-time in the huddles (Friday night), leading us to this win. He was amazing. He always amazes me with some of the things he does. That dude is special.”
Walking the walk
It’s fair to say that after eight trying years in Charlotte, Walker is appreciative of being with the Celtics.
His Carolina teams finished above .500 just twice and were knocked out of the playoffs in the first round on both occasions.
Looking at the Celts’ 10game streak, he shook it off.
“I’m looking just to win,” Walker said. “I’ve never won this many games in a row. I’ve never had a start like this at this level. I’m just liking the way I’m feeling after the game. Like, I just feel good. That’s all I’m thinking about. I could care less about the streak. Just the feeling of winning, it feels good.”
Walker spoke about all the players getting an opportunity with Golden State because of the Warriors’ many injuries and how that club is playing hard while struggling at 2-11.
“I’ve been a part of that,” he said. “Those kind of situations, they humble you. For me personally, it definitely humbled me, and it just made me work extremely hard to try and become the best player I can be. I’m definitely grateful for those situations. It was hard to be a part of, but at the end of the day that I look back it definitely made me who I am for sure.”
College homecoming
With the Celts very much in Cal-Berkeley territory Friday, Stevens got asked about Brown, who’s averaging 24.8 points over his last four games and is easily having the best season of his young career.
“He’s been on a great kind of trend upward throughout his time here,” said the coach. “I mean, the first year obviously was up and down, as most young guys are, but relative to others, the impact he had in the playoffs was pretty amazing for a 19-yearold. You know, second- and third-years showed good progression, and now he’s just taken it to a different level.
“I think the biggest thing that stands out is how much more comfortable he is making reads off different actions. That’s just kind of the typical progression for a really good young player like him. He works hard, he’s a good two-way player and he’s off to a heck of a start this year.”
Brown had an emotional night against the Warriors, in that it was the two-year anniversary of his best friend’s death. He went for 22 points, matching the 22 he had versus Golden State around the same time in 2017, and he pointed out that the friend, Trevin Steede, wore No. 22 and was 22 years old when he passed.