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Brad Stevens dedicated the majority of Saturday’s practice to defining each player’s role on the Boston Celtics.
He didn’t mince words while doing so.
“The message was conveyed directly,” Grant Williams said. “No question of it.”
Williams indicated that the message did not fall on deaf ears. He and his teammates heard the mantra that has been made famous by their NFL neighbors, the New England Patriots, loud and clear: Do Your Job.
“We were just kinda defined in what we were asked to do,” Williams further explained. “And that may expand due to the fact that some guys may be out right now, but for this team to be successful we all have to do our jobs and do them efficiently and do them well.”
Those roles are not necessarily what one might expect. To Stevens, the devil is in the details.
“I think sometimes we all misconstrue, or misdefine roles, as playing time,” he explained. “Your role is what you need to do to add value to winning when you’re in the game.
“It’s not whether you’re starting, whether you’re coming off the end of the bench, whether you’re in at the end of the third quarter, whatever. It’s: What do you do? What’s your job when you’re in the game? And so we talked in a lot of detail about that today.”
Part of that conversation was directed at Williams. The versatile forward acknowledged Saturday that he has not lived up to the expectations of his role thus far in the season.
“I wasn’t being physical,” he admitted. “That’s something that I’m asked to do, and that’s something coach needs us to have a presence, and that’s something I didn’t do. So that’s room for me individually (to improve), being that presence and being that guy to set the tone.”
One player who has excelled within his role this preseason is second-year wing Javonte Green.
Green’s role on the team last season was minimal, at best. He appeared in 48 of the team’s 72 regular-season games, averaging just 9.8 minutes per contest. He logged more than 20 minutes only three times and started only two games.
Yet this preseason, he earned two surprise starts in Boston’s backcourt. Stevens singled him out following both of those contests despite the fact that Green totaled only seven points, five rebounds and two steals.
“He just has a good idea of what he does do well and what he doesn’t do well. I think that’s really important,” Stevens explained Saturday. “He’s improved some of the areas where he needs to improve. Whether he starts or comes off the bench for us, the biggest thing he can bring us is his athleticism and his ability to raise the energy level in the room.”
That’s all the Celtics are asking Green to provide. That is his clear and decisive role, and he has excelled within it during the preseason.
In a way, Stevens spent the majority of Saturday asking the Celtics to be more like Green; to play within themselves, and to be stars within their roles.
That’s not exactly where the Celtics expected to be four days before Opening Night, but it may be where they needed to be for Stevens’ message to be heard loud and clear.