Brad Stevens is back to his normal self.
The Boston Celtics head coach has been analyzing his team’s 2018-19 season and preparing for the next campaign since exiting the NBA playoffs earlier this month, his former assistant coach Micah Shrewsberry revealed to The Boston Globe’s Adam Himmelsbach on Thursday. Stevens has kept a low profile since the Milwaukee Bucks eliminated the Celtics in the second round of the NBA playoffs after just five games, but Shrewsberry, who recently left Stevens’ staff for a position at Purdue University, insists that’s because his longtime boss is busy setting the team’s tone for 2019-2020.
“He’s definitely locked in,” Shrewsberry said. “He’s back to reading all the quotes and seeing what the best teams are doing. ‘Here’s where we failed, here’s how we’re going to correct it, and we’ll get to the roster when it happens.’ But he’s all the way back and locked into next year and being ready, like, let’s have a great one next year.
“The Bucks showed us something, and there’s a little bit we can take from them in terms of how they played. Little things you can take from Toronto, Golden State, Portland. Every little edge you can grab from those guys, I think Brad’s looking at all of those and saying, ‘How can I make this better? How can we add this little tweak for next year and be better?'”
Stevens admitted May 8 during his postgame press conference to doing a “bad job” over the course of the season. Shrewsberry highlights the team’s inconsistency among the most regrettable aspects of the season.
“We were never able to really galvanize ourselves as a team for a long stretch,” Shrewsberry said. “We would do it in short spurts, but then just wouldn’t carry that over. That’ll be something that eats at us as coaches and players.”
Shrewsberry believes that’s why Stevens, his remaining staff and several players have gathered at the Celtics’ practice facility in Boston to plot the course for future success.
“It’s kind of a ‘When can we start?'” Shrewsberry said. “‘How can we get through this summer so we can get back to playing again?’ There’s kind of an optimism, and a bad taste that you want to get rid of quickly.”
The 2019-20 season won’t begin until October, but Celtics bosses rightfully are ensuring they start on sound footing by working and reflecting simultaneously.
