Aaron Nesmith credits Jerry Stackhouse’s coaching learning Celtics’ defense

Green Bean is reaping the harvest of the seeds he and former coach Jerry Stackhouse planted at Vanderbilt.

Boston Celtics rookie sharpshooter Aaron Nesmith doesn’t have much time to prepare for meaningful minutes at the NBA level for his new team, but neither he nor his new coach seem overly concerned about the prospect.

Speaking to the press on Tuesday, Celtics head coach Brad Stevens was asked how the Vanderbilt product was acclimating to the speed, length and athleticism of the NBA game, and the former Butler chief seemed pleased with the limited sample size he has had to assess. “We haven’t played very much up and down, so there’s not a lot of possessions there,” Stevens said.

“I’m not worried about his shot at all. I think everything else is what needs to — he just needs to learn as quickly as possible. He’s a good shooter, he’s a smart kid, I think he’ll pick things up very quickly, but there’s a lot to pick up.”

Boston plays their first preseason game this Friday, Dec.15 at 7:30 pm, and face the Milwaukee Bucks for their regular season opener Dec. 23. So, there truly is very little time for any of Boston’s incoming players to get up to speed.

“It’s a lot coming in really fast; it’s a quick turnaround,” suggested Nesmith while speaking with the media on Wednesday.

“I’m just trying to come in with a mindset of getting better every single day, being one percent better than I was yesterday while I’m trying to apply the schemes that we’re trying to run, and the things that we’re trying to incorporate on offense and defense.”

Sounds easy enough.

Joking aside, having a baseline of familiarity with how a pro team plays helps.

And given Nesmith played for former NBA star Jerry Stackhouse at Vanderbilt, the South Carolina native already has a leg up on the Celtics’ defensive schema.

“Definitely more on the defensive side of the ball than anything has been most familiar to me,” shared Nesmith. “We did some of the same things we did at Vanderbilt, so being able to just take what I learned there and bring it over here has made the transition a little bit easier on that side of the ball for sure.”

Boston will need him to defend competently while nailing an occasional trey for the team’s second unit to avoid overtaxing the starters for a second consecutive season.

But with a more mature bench and prospects selected at least in part for their apparent battle-readiness, it seems probable the team will be a much more balanced affair for 2020-21.

And having a flamethrower like Nesmith on the team who cut his teeth on NBA-style defenses many months before he ever suited up for the Celtics can only help in that process.

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