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Pregame Post-Ups: Stevens: Morris ‘Doing All the Right Things’ to Win

Tuesday, April 17 - Bucks at Celtics

Pregame – Stevens: Morris ‘Doing All the Right Things’ to Win

BOSTON – As Celtics coach Brad Stevens walked his team through a film session Tuesday morning ahead of Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals against the Milwaukee Bucks, there was one play from Game 1 that he felt he needed to highlight extensively.

The clip he showed was a driving layup by Marcus Morris that put the Celtics ahead, 58-56, midway through the third quarter.

However, this wasn’t an ordinary driving layup. After the bucket fell, Morris crashed to the floor and slid into the basket stanchion. Rather than take his time getting up, like most players would do after taking a hard fall, Morris immediately sprung to his feet and sprinted back the other way in order to help the Celtics set their defense.

It fully embodied everything that a coach would want out of a player on a single play: grit, determination, hustle and a team-first attitude.

Morris displayed those four traits all throughout Sunday’s 113-107 win, and Stevens took note of it.

“He’s in it to win it,” Stevens said Tuesday evening ahead of Game 2 at TD Garden. “He’s doing all of the right things.”

Morris didn’t shy away from taking on a heavy offensive load for Game 1, as came off the bench to attempt a team-high 20 field goal attempts. His interchangeability between the 3 and 4 allowed him to earn 35 minutes and score a reserve-high 21 points.

“He’s a guy that when he does play the 3, he can post-up, but at the 4 you tend to get more opportunities,” said Stevens. “Obviously that changes a little bit when they went small the way they did. The thing that I would say about Morris’ impact the other day is that it’s been very consistent to what he’s done all year for us. I thought he was great on the glass, he made some plays on some loose balls, some rebounds. He tipped in his own miss at one point. But he had a couple of other huge effort plays.”

The biggest play, of course, was the one that Stevens highlighted thoroughly during Tuesday’s film session. The coach wanted to make sure that Morris’ hustle stuck in the heads of his players heading into Game 2, with the hope that it would add motivation for the team as it looks to get off to a 2-0 series lead.

- Taylor Snow