Brad Stevens, Coach of the Boston Celtics

[DaveO]

Brad Stevens is currently and often described as one of the genius coaches in basketball.  For the last few years he has been coach of the Boston Celtics.  Before that he was the coach for Butler University.  Butler had a number of excellent teams during his tenure most famously getting to the finals of the NCAA's and playing a great game before losing to Duke.  Butler is a mid level school that has never attracted to the most talented athletes. 

The Celtics are in the NBA playoffs this year.  They have a mostly young roster and two of their superstars aren't playing.  Yet they are now up 3-0 on the amazingly talented but young Philadelphia 76er's.

All of that is prelude for some remarkable on the floor coaching with complex after time out throw ins on offense.  The Celtics scored both times with lay ups.  The points were critical to a close game win.  Essentially, after all is said and done Stevens diagrammed plays with lots and lots of screening and misdirection that drew the 76'ers enormous center away from the basket and enabled a Celtic to get a lay up.  There are all types of coaches performing in all sorts of ways.  Stevens, got his team two critical baskets in a very close critical game.

You can watch it all here on the videos in the article.  

I've watched too much basketball over too many decades.  I watch less than I used to.  These two plays were all coaching...Bravo to him and the Boston team for setting up the complex plays and executing so well.

 

[dracisk]

59 minutes ago, DaveO said:

Bravo to him and the Boston team for setting up the complex plays and executing so well.

The end of that game Saturday night (regulation and OT) was insane! I was just reading Stevens' Wikipedia page earlier today. He sounds like quite a guy (in addition to being quite a coach):

Quote

Stevens prefers to recruit strong team players instead of going after "top recruits."^[23] "The guys we [have] recruited, most of them weren't very highly ranked," Stevens says. "They had very good high school careers or careers at other places (transfers), but for one reason or the other they weren't seen as great players. But they all had intangibles."^[23] Stevens puts a strong emphasis on education and has said he would only recruit a "one and done" player if he was committed to getting his degree while playing professionally.^[83]

Stevens has often been referred to as a coaching prodigy,^[79] but is not interested in self-promotion. He instead prefers to deflect the praise he receives to the players, athletic department, and his mentors.^[91] He has not been known to posture for more money, or to leak his name for open coaching positions.^[91] He has been described as humble, modest, and not "about the money".^[23][96]