Stevens: Celtics Need Four Great Defensive Games To Clinch Playoff Berth
BOSTON (CBS) -- With four games remaining in the regular season, the Boston Celtics control their own playoff destiny.
Still, they have to do some scoreboard watching over the next five days just to be sure. But given the opportunity, Celtics head coach Brad Stevens had some fun with the situation on Friday.
When asked if he was doing any scoreboard watching himself on his weekly call into 98.5 The Sports Hub's Zolak and Bertrand, Stevens said he was in fact keeping an eye on the scoreboard -- though he probably should have said "leaderboard" instead.
"I'm all over the scoreboard. Speith is up by four strokes, right?," Stevens joked, referring to Justin Speith's lead at The Masters.
As for his basketball team, Stevens knows they have four very tough games to close out the season. First up is a home-and-home against the Cavaliers starting in Cleveland on Friday night.
The Cavs locked up the two-seed in the Eastern Conference, but LeBron James has already said that he'll suit up on Friday. It's unclear if he'll do the same on Sunday when the Cavs come to Boston, but that isn't Stevens or the Celtics' focus right now.
"It's not about who is playing and who is not playing; it's about how do we best play well," said Stevens. "That's where our focus has to be regardless. Hey, LeBron is arguably the MVP again, he's clearly been the most dominant individual player on the planet for a while now. At the same time, when he is out they're still loading with Kyrie Irving, Kevin Love, J.R. Smith -- they're loaded. We're going to have to play well to win regardless of who is on the floor."
While he's seen some steady growth from his team on the defensive side of the floor, Stevens said there is always room for improvement on that front. He knows his Celtics are going to need four solid defensive efforts to close the season if they want to punch their ticket to the postseason.
"I think the last time I looked we're up to 14th in the league, which is obviously an improvement but we have to get much better on that end of the floor. As we continue to gain experience playing together, and continue to gain trust playing off one another, hopefully every time out we improve within our defense. We have moments where we're very good and moments we have to be a lot better," he said. "If we're going to get what we want at the end of these four games, and still be playing after that, we're going to have to play four great defensive games."
After the Cavs visit on Sunday, the Celtics host the Toronto Raptors on Tuesday before closing the season against the Bucks in Milwaukee on Wednesday. The Celtics have played both teams in the last two weeks, giving the end of the season a unique feel for the Celtics coach.
"After today, we're basically playing three games against teams we played in the last 10 days. Maybe that is a lot like getting the opportunity to play [in the playoffs] – you have to play teams you're recently familiar with. You've seen how they're trending, what works and what doesn't work, and you make small tweaks and adjustments," he said.
"This is, and we knew it going in, this is an extremely challenging part of the schedule. That continues tonight against one of the great contenders out of the East and to win it all. We just have to focus, again, on us and playing well," Stevens reiterated. "We have two games against them, another game against a good Toronto team, and a game at Milwaukee, who has handled us twice. We have our hands full, we just have to do it one day, one minute at a time."
Stevens also touched on Isaiah Thomas' big game on Wednesday night and Jae Crowder's impact since arriving from Dallas:
