Stevens: Celtics’ defensive attention, resiliency critical in Game 5

Boston Celtics head coach Brad Stevens pointed to the team’s defensive attention and ability to bounce back from adversity as key to a Game 5 win.

A defensive renaissance is what Boston Celtics head coach Brad Stevens thinks his team needs to come out strong against the Toronto Raptors in Game 5 of their 2020 second-round playoff series.

Speaking to the media ahead of the game, the Indiana native had a lot to say, and not just about defense.

But the Celtics’ recent defensive lapses — even as good as they have been — weighed on Stevens, which makes sense given Toronto hasn’t been able to win by much of a margin, and Game 3 coming down to a miracle shot in the game’s final milliseconds.

Defence is something the Celtics can control.

“I think the biggest thing is we’ve got to defend better at the start of the first and third quarter,” he offered. “That’s something that we’re paying close attention to, for sure. And then, that helps you get down the court, helps you get into space, helps you get better looks.”

“I think we’ve just got to keep playing the right way on offense, keep trying to make it as tough as possible — but I think defensively, we’ve got to be better, especially in transition in those two quarters,” Stevens added.

Amid the talk of momentum shifts (which are, incidentally, not a thing outside of narratives we tend to superimpose on events more closely correlated to past performance), what is real is the resiliency of a group, and teams able to psychologically weather a tough blow.

And if you’ve seen a tougher ending to a game than in Game 3 of this series, you’ve probably tried to wipe it from your memory.

“I think one of the things we’ve talked a lot about is special groups,” noted Stevens, “and if you want to be special that’s only reserved for a few, right?”

“Special groups have a great resiliency about [them], they’re able to compartmentalize what went well, what didn’t go well, [and] say ‘I’m going to come back and be the best that I can be’ and realize it’s not going to be perfect, but realize that this is part of competition, and part of being in this arena and part of being specialists. You’ve got to be able to get back off the mat.”

Can the Celtics get up off of the mat after an unexpected flurry of blows?

Are they really so young they still have a glass jaw, or will we see some real resolve from this team?

We’re less than an hour away from finding out with tip-off scheduled for 6:30 p.m.; let’s hope the team has some toughness to it after all they’ve been through this season.

And let’s hope they heed their coach, who asks them to “resist all the stuff that doesn’t matter … [and] pay attention to how we can be the best we can be, and just go out there and fight.”

[lawrence-related id=41514,41511,41501,41493]