Tag: romeo langford- celtics bench

Celtics coach Stevens praised bench, stars in Sixers G2 blowout

Boston Celtics head coach Brad Stevens was quick to praise his bench as much as his stars in Wednesdays blowout win of the Sixers.

After Wednesday night’s win over the Philadelphia 76ers, a lot of attention was rightfully focused on the job the Boston Celtics’ stars did to secure the win in injured veteran forward Gordon Hayward’s absence, but the Celtics coach made a point of praising his bench for the win as well.

“All three of those guys [Kemba Walker, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown] made shots, and did a lot of tough things,” he explained.

“I thought the difference tonight though was our bench really took a game that was not going our way and changed it. So, those guys did what they do. And we need them to keep doing what they do, and they’re great at it but I think it’s appropriate to really give credit to them and our bench, as our bench was really good tonight.”

In fact, after the Celtics struggled early and the Sixers seemed unable to miss in the first quarter, it was the energy off of the bench that really seemed to turn the tide back Boston’s way.

Stevens agreed.

“Our whole disposition changed, I thought, when we went to the bench, and I just thought it was much tougher,” he noted, “as far as every possession was more challenged.”

“We didn’t start the game well, and they started. great, they made every shot — credit them for that. But I just thought that from that point on, I’ve never would have thought we would have stayed … with that group in the second quarter that long, and to their credit, I couldn’t take them out. They were playing great together, [and] turned the game around for us.”

“We’re going to need everybody; we talked about that with Gordon out. I’m not going to replace him with one person; we’ll replace him by committee, and tonight guys did a good job of that,” he added.

And while veterans like Enes Kanter and Brad Wanamaker continued to play roles off of the bench, the emergence of rookies Grant Williams and Romeo Langford in Hayward’s absence is reason for celebration.

Competent minutes on the floor on the wing will be desperately needed by Boston while he heals if the Celtics are to make a deep run.

“Grant’s couple of threes are big in that group,” offered Stevens, “Kanter had a huge 3 at the end of the shot clock, but also tons of rebounds and played well, and Romeo just did his job.

“Romeo is really improved in that regard. So I think that I credit all of them, because when you’re playing around really good scorers, you just need to play your role really well, and be a superstar in your role. I thought that they did that tonight.”

“We’re going to need to do that again, two wins in a playoff series doesn’t mean a whole lot,” he added.

Hopefully, the Celtics are listening to Stevens on this last point and keep their foot on the gas pedal going forward to make a short series of it with the Sixers.

While they are absolutely reeling after two winnable losses slipping through their fingers in two games, they are not out, and could come back and do some damage if Boston allows them to.

But with performances like we’ve seen from the stars and especially the bench so far in this series, the ceiling is as high as their health and effort will take them.

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