Celtics ‘much better’ but need to keep defensive focus, says Stevens

Boston Celtics head coach Brad Stevens likes what he saw from the team vs. the Phoenix Suns, but cautioned defensive intensity needs more work.

The Boston Celtics shook off the rust weighing them down against the Oklahoma City Thunder in Friday’s exhibition loss to that team to come back with a 117 – 103 win over the Phoenix Suns Sunday afternoon in their second tune-up scrimmage of three.

The team started out a little rusty, but some quick adjustments by the starters followed by some of the best bench play we have seen from the Celtics this season gave Boston the big win, and head coach Brad Stevens took note.

Speaking about the bench in particular, Stevens praised them postgame.

“I thought they were better today. I thought they struggled first game, but that was not a huge surprise. They’ve been pretty good in practice and I thought they were better today,” he added.

Asked if any had done themselves any favors towards securing more minutes, Stevens was evasively affirmative, suggesting some had even while keeping his own assessments close to the vest.

“Every time you take the floor, or every time you don’t take the floor, you’re being evaluated for a future opportunity, and I think that that’s a huge part of being a professional basketball player.

It’s how you prepare, it’s how you go about your daily business, it’s how you play when you get an opportunity. And it’s how you respond to how you play, and all that stuff matters.”

While no one player off of the Celtics’ bench was especially transcendent, the team got solid play on both ends of the ball by several second unit players.

Reserve guards Brad Wanamaker and Romeo Langford put up 9 points each, Carsen Edwards and Enes Kanter 7 points both (with 12 boards from the Turkish big man as well), and forward Semi Ojeleye chipping in 5 points.

“We’ll go back and look and see if we’re playing better, but then it’s about getting better again tomorrow,” noted Stevens. “Some guys are showing some things that I think can make our best players better, and those will be the guys that end up in the rotation are the guys that can bring out the best in our best players.”

Starting point guard Kemba Walker made his return to the court, and while he didn’t go off with just 6 points on 2-of-6 shooting, his movement looked good, his burst — as Stevens had put it — indeed looking to be back.

“Nine to 10 minutes, was the kind of time we had for him to play,” explained the Celtics coach as to why the UConn product only saw about half the floor time of the next-closest starter’s time — Daniel Theis with 17 minutes and change.

“Like we said he’s going to be on a minute restriction when we start playing the seating games but I thought he looked good I thought he has burst I thought he played hard defensively. You know, created a couple of great chaos on a couple of different plays offensively.”

And while the outcome was worlds different from Friday’s, Stevens still had some criticisms to put out there.

The defense — while mostly better — was far from consistent, ebbing and flowing throughout the game, and the former Butler head coach was quick to note such an approach would be devastating against the elite teams of the league.

“We were staring instead of running. I don’t know that it’s necessarily a lack of effort, I just think we just have to make sure we do a lot better on that end of the floor … If we play like that against [the] Milwaukee [Bucks], they can set records, so we better be a lot better.”

The Celtics play their third and final exhibition scrimmage against the Houston Rockets this Tuesday, July 28th at 8 p.m. ET.

The team has struggled in previous meetings with the now ultra-small starting lineup sometimes called the “Pocket” Rockets.

The final tune-up tilt will give Boston an opportunity to see how they’ll respond to other team’s smaller lineups, as this will be the final meeting between the two teams this season.

Barring, of course, an NBA Finals matchup.

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