NBA EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: CELTICS VS. HEAT

September 19, 2020

Brad Stevens

Boston Celtics

Game 3: Postgame

Celtics - 117, Heat - 106

Q. 31 minutes for Gordon Hayward tonight. How did you think he looked and did you ever expect you would be able to play him that much coming into tonight?

BRAD STEVENS: I didn't expect to play him that much, but with Smart in some foul trouble at the end of the third, Theis in some foul trouble, I thought he looked pretty good. And we have four days off, so that's why I didn't say, like, we're just going to monitor him to see how he looks. He asked to come out a couple times. The wind caught up to him a couple times. I thought he did what he's done all year. He didn't shoot it quite as much. But he is a stabilizing force for our team. He just can make the right play and make a play for somebody else at the right time. And he hit the big three as they were making a run, so I think he makes us better, that's for sure.

Q. In the beginning of the series you joked about the home arena thing and how it's all meaningless and stuff, but how different is the psyche down 2-0 here knowing that you're not getting on a plane, that there's been all these wild swings?

BRAD STEVENS: That's a good question. I haven't even thought about it. I think, as I heard Spoe say this a couple days ago, it feels like the playoffs. So I don't know that I think about whether or not you're playing in your home arena or your road arena or in a neutral site or whatever, it's just, it's hard. It's tiring. It's tough. So it's felt like that. I don't know that I think it's felt any harder or any easier. It's just felt like the playoffs.

Q. How much did Jaylen's aggressiveness set the tone for you guys tonight?

BRAD STEVENS: Our whole team was aggressive. Our whole team played with the right mentality. And most importantly responded to their good runs and tough shots really well and then pushed leads out. The run at the end of the first half was a great one and, you know, in response to when they cut it to four or five right there. And then, yeah, even when they got it closer in the second, with the exception of the last minute, I thought we responded. The last couple minutes, I thought we responded pretty well.

Q. How proud are you of the guys for the way they responded and sticking to the game plan, not getting discouraged when they made runs, doing what you have been asking?

BRAD STEVENS: Yeah, I mean, I told a good majority, I think I told the team this yesterday, I certainly told the staff two nights ago, like, this result didn't really matter to me. It was more about, like, what are we going to show ourselves to be. And I thought that we are a really special group, a really good group. And the first time we were pushed to more emotions that challenged us we got better and that's encouraging.

Q. You guys talked coming into this series about the importance of closing out games, and the first couple of games you kind of struggled to do that. What does it mean to you to kind of be able to get over that hump of having this big lead and being able to hang on to it, even though they did make a couple of runs down the stretch?

BRAD STEVENS: Yeah, I think you've always got that thing in the back of your mind telling you the negative side of things, but we just chose to focus on the possession tonight, focus on the task at hand. I still thought we were a little sloppy at times late, so I think we need to continue to be much better in that regard. But they're tough. They keep coming at you with the three-pointer. And I said this earlier today, a 17-point lead on Miami is like eight. It just doesn't -- it's not that big. So as bad as we feel of seeing the story over and over with the three-point shot, we did some good things tonight to answer their runs most of the time.

Q. I know you mentioned that you were happy with the way the guys responded. What did it take maybe over the past 48 hours to get from where you were after Game 2 to where you were at the start of Game 3 to have this performance?

BRAD STEVENS: Just took a bunch of good people committed to each other. There's no special talk, no special things, no rah-rah speeches. It's who you have in the locker room and are they committed to each other. Everybody gets pushed to emotions in sports. That's why I was curious to see what would happen tonight, but I didn't have much doubt. I think this group has some good character.

Q. With your closeness with Gordon and then the extra layer of his decision to play for you guys tonight and not going to be there for the birth of his fourth child when it comes, what does that mean just in terms of the sacrifice?

BRAD STEVENS: Has he said that?

Q. He told Rachel Nichols that.

BRAD STEVENS: She didn't tell me (Laughing.) So if he wants to go back for the birth of his child, that takes priority. That's his decision and it's, you know, I want to leave it at that. That's his decision.

Q. Dragic had a ton of success in the first couple of games. Can you talk about the decision to have Marcus on him a little more tonight and the job he did to help slow him down?

BRAD STEVENS: Well, he had to change some of our pick-and-roll coverages. It still didn't help much on some of the Bam rolls. We still got to be a lot better on Bam. But Marcus's ball pressure on Dragic is obviously something that we need to continue to look at. Dragic is a great player and he's a guy that's playing the best I've ever seen him play. So we'll just continue to accept matchups and do our best, but everybody's got to guard hard. Marcus did a good job early. And even the one -- even like the Dragic bucket on Grant, I thought was really hard. He hit his chest and Grant was straight up and Dragic threw it in, but he does that.

Q. You've stressed throughout these entire playoffs that solid defense leads to transition points on the other end of the floor. We definitely saw that tonight. How would you evaluate that? And then, in addition, also just the poise in the paint, the way that you guys attacked the basket, was that by design in some ways to send a message with your aggressiveness?

BRAD STEVENS: Yeah, we wanted to really attack. If we're putting it on the floor, we want to get to the rim and make a play for ourselves or others. And if we're not pressuring the ball defensively, we're waiting to be attacked, we stink. So might as well pressure and see if we can be good.