Boston Celtics: 3 takeaways from season-ending Game 5 loss vs. Bucks

1. Brad Stevens did a bad job

He’ll tell you himself. He’s not wrong, either. This season was the worst coaching performance of Brad Stevens’ career. After being handed the most talented roster he’s ever had, at any level of basketball, Stevens was unable to ever mold them into a cohesive unit.

Much has been said about the Celtics’ inability to work as a team. The clash of personalities and players who struggled to find their roles created a toxic and unhappy environment in the locker room. As much as that has to do with team-building itself, it also has to do with coaching.

Managing egos is one of the more difficult, and also likely most important roles of an NBA head coach. Erik Spoelstra is one of the best at this, and managed the Miami Heat about as well as could be expected during the LeBron James years. Similarly, Steve Kerr does an incredible job managing high-level talent for the Golden State Warriors.

Brad Stevens hasn’t had any experience managing egos. He spent the first half of his tenure with the Celtics overseeing a roster with limited talent, going through a clear rebuild. Now that he’s been handed one of the most talented and deepest rosters in the NBA, his inexperience managing a roster like that was magnified.

It would be wrong to put all of the blame on Stevens. At some point, players have to hit shots. It’s a player’s league, after all. However, Xs and Os win games in the playoffs, and Stevens struggled to draw up plays that earned him his wunderkind status in the past.

After Budenholzer claimed the Bucks wouldn’t adjust after Game 1, it felt like the Celtics were the team that didn’t adjust. They continued to play the same style of individual basketball that saw them struggle to 49 wins during the regular season.

Stevens is still one of the Celtics’ most important assets, but the team struggled from top to bottom this season and the margin for error has shrunk for the 2019-20 campaign. He will need to be better moving forward.