Brad Stevens has surpassed the great “up-and-coming” coach moniker; he is one of the elite coaches in the NBA today. Stevens is good at relating to his players and getting the best out of them, but his true bread and butter is out of bounds plays, and he proved that again on Saturday when the Celtics took a 3-0 series lead over the Philadelphia 76ers.
Marcus Morris threw a perfect inbound pass to Al Horford, who was posting up in the paint, and from there all Horford had to do was complete the layup to give the Celtics the lead.
Like a lot of play calls for Stevens, it worked to perfection and resulted in another win. This wasn't the first time that Stevens used that play call to try and get a basket in a big spot, though.
He tried this same play when he was with the Butler Bulldogs but it didn't come together nearly as well. The inbounder was able to get the ball in and the center made a nice post move, but the shot ended up being blocked. In Saturday's game with Boston, he went back to the old bag of tricks it worked out a lot better in a more crucial situation to give Celtics complete command of the series.
It also helped that Boston ended up getting a bit of a mismatch in the post. Robert Covington was matched up with Horford, and once Horford caught the pass, Covington had zero chance to make the stop.
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