The Celtics understood the world would be watching their matchup with the Lakers. But before stepping onto the big stage, they prepared for it by urging each other to take better care of the little things. In what Marcus Smart described as a film session unlike any he had ever experienced with the Celtics, head coach Brad Stevens had players essentially grade every minor detail of Saturday night’s loss to the Suns.
The Celtics normally watch just select clips from recent games. This time, they watched every defensive play from the first half of the defeat. The coaching staff normally leads the instruction. This time, Stevens stopped the action regularly to give the players an opportunity to critique themselves. It might not have been the most groundbreaking coaching wrinkle ever, but Smart considered it a refreshing, collaborative way for the Celtics players to evaluate their recent slippage.
“It was really just holding ourselves accountable,” Smart said. “We looked at every possession and he would pause it and we would ask ourselves, ‘Did we do our job?’ We went through the game plan and we checked off the list if we did our job. If we didn’t, we put a mark up on the board, ‘no.’ If we did, we put a mark up on the board, ‘yes.’ So for us, it was really not so much getting on us but really allowing us to learn. And not overreacting too much (to a recent losing skid).”
