Stevens says he’s a ‘Masshole’
Shuts down rumors about Indiana job
As it often does, social media breathed fresh air into a rumor line Brad Stevens thought was dead: despite having the full support of Celtics ownership and his general manager, he was still going to leave in an attempt to save Indiana’s men’s basketball program.
CELTICS NOTEBOOK
So this time the Celtics coach tried to explain reality in terms that a local would understand.
“I’m not a kid anymore. I’m a 44-year-old Masshole,” Stevens said in what, for him, was a gritty summation. “I swerve around others when I’m driving, I eat Dunkin Donuts and I root for the Patriots. I’m, unfortunately, skewed in a lot of ways, I guess.
“I said it the other day: I’m not (interested),” he said. “And I tried to say it as clearly as I could and also make sure that people understand that that place (Indiana) to me is special. Because I don’t want to make it sound like it’s not.
“But, like I said the other day, I’m so grateful to this organization, and to the people here, and for all that they’ve done for us. I’ve got unbelievable leadership in (GM Danny Ainge) and (owners Wyc Grousbeck and Stephen Pagliuca), and what they’ve done for us, the way we’ve been supported … we’re going through a tough season, and I think that it’s not my job to not go through it. It’s not my job to not make sure I’m doing everything I can to help find a better version of ourselves this year.
“I love coming to work every day. I love this area. People have been great to us. My family is so happy. And, at the same time, home is home. And that’s why I wanted to make sure everybody understood that means a lot. But no. Just like I said on Tuesday, I’m not. So, I don’t know if I will have to answer that again on Monday, but I hope that people understand that. And people can hopefully appreciate that it still means a lot to me and I hope they hire whoever they hire and they are there for 20 years and kids feel like I did.”
‘Got to find a way’
The Celtics woke up a 2020 team on Friday morning, and never mind that 32 games were left following their game against Sacramento that night in the Garden.
They are under more pressure than at any point in the Brad Stevens era, and Marcus Smart admits to feeling some heat on a team that had dropped to eighth in the Eastern Conference by Thursday night.
“It’s not gonna be easy. Our window is definitely closing,” Smart said of what will be a tough challenge to recover during the stretch run.
“But if anybody can do it, this group of guys, myself included, we can,” he said. “We just got to figure it out, and I think we will. I don’t know when, but we are under a lot of fire as a team.
“But, you know, we’ve been dealing with it. This isn’t our first time, first season we’ve ever been under fire, in the postseason, then making a change. So we just gotta click. We just got to find something to click. It might take a game, it might take two, but we got to figure it out. Once we do, I think we’ll be OK. And right now, like I said we got to continue to just help each other bring that energy, especially when one guy’s lacking it.”
Smart said that pressure is coming from all directions — including fans — and that there’s no choice but for this ego-bruised team to respond.
“It’s all kinds of pressure. It’s pressure from ourselves, it’s pressure from the outside noise, it’s pressure from the ones most loyal to us,” said Smart. “It’s pressure from everybody. We understand that we’re not playing to the standard and up to the pedestal that we have been put on, and that we have to accept it. We understand it. We have to look ourselves in the mirror when we go home at night. We feel that — that pressure on ourselves being the pressure from just everybody else. It’s tough, but you’ve got to deal with it. It comes with the territory, but you’ve got to find a way. So there’s pressure all around us each and every day just like anybody else, but we’ve just got to find a way.
“We have to continue to help one another, like I said and keep repeating but it’s true. We have to look out for one another because no one else is. It’s OK, we understand it, we get it and like I said, this isn’t our first time being under fire early on in the season, getting ready. Obviously, we have to fix it. We know it, we hear it, we see it, we feel it. We just got to find a way.”
‘We’re searching for that light’
If those on the outside think that watching these recent Celtics performances have been painful, imagine how it feels for the players.
“I think it’s very tough. You guys witness it, but we’re watching it, we’re playing it, we feel it. It’s definitely tough, but those types of moments are the ones that define us and make us stronger,” said Smart. “There’s some games that are tougher than others for certain guys individually because, like I said, in their personal life, individual life, we got a lot going on. I think a lot of people including fans, media, and just everybody forget that we’re humans. We’ve got a lot going on other than basketball, and then we have to come here, clear our minds from our individual life, and come give that energy to a group of guys here, and play. So it’s a lot. It’s a lot. So for us, we do start slow, and just try to get that energy.
“We’ve got to be able to help one another. We’ve got to find a way. Right now, we’re kind of blind, but we’re searching for that light. We’ve got to keep searching. We can’t give up. Because I know there’s a lot of people out there that’s already counting us out. I know there’s a lot of people out there that’s ready to give up on us, which is fine, it’s cool. We’re all we got, so we’re the ones that have to deal with the consequences. We’re the ones that have to deal with it, so we have to figure it out. We’ve just got to figure that out and bring that energy for one another. We will. Like I said, we’ve just got to find what we gotta do to kind of get it clicking and kind of get it started to keep that fire lit.”