All the way back to his days at Butler, Brad Stevens has been known as a really good coach both with relating to players and also with the X's and O's of the game. Los Angeles Lakers legend Kobe Bryant, who played for one of the best ever Phil Jackson, has been really impressed with what he has seen from the Boston Celtics bench boss' coaching and talked about it on the Chris and Caron Show on Fox Sports Radio.
“I think he observes a lot better. He observes the game, the flow of the game. And tendencies. He can look at players and their tendencies. And then you can file that away. That last play [in Game 3], I had to laugh. He just pulled everybody up. It was prime misdirection. Al Horford just held … he just vacated the backside. If you simply put everybody there, it’s a dead giveaway for what’s going to happen. He used Philly’s aggressiveness and youth against them. He knew they were going to be aggressive defensively, he knew they were going to overplay, and now you have Horford on the backside. He’s able to look at the game and make adjustments on the fly. He’s a great coach, man.”
For Bryant, he says one of the most important things for coaches is to watch a ton of film. Watching film helps one become a better observer, something he thinks that Stevens probably does a lot of.
“To be able to see the game like that requires a lot of film study. Watching film over and over and over. Studying over and over and over. To then be able to observe things in real time. That can only be done by a person who has that level of commitment to the game. Which I’m sure he does.”
For Stevens this year, this might be his best coaching job ever. He has dealt with a ton of injuries and the Celtics are a very young team, but they are still only one win away from the Eastern Conference Finals.