Boston Celtics
“One of the things we’ve got to figure out is how to have more of an impact at the rim and I think we do need to add to our team to do that.”
Brad Stevens speaking at his end-of-season press conference on May 6, 2026. David L Ryan/Globe Staff
Brad Stevens spoke for more than 30 minutes at the Auerbach Center on Wednesday, taking questions on a variety of topics in the aftermath of the Celtics’ first-round loss to the 76ers.
He opened by saying that Philadelphia played well and deserved to win. The Celtics had a hard time getting good looks on offense, and sometimes shot too many threes, both things that may be reevaluated during the offseason.
After early playoff exits at the hands of lower-seeded teams in three of the last four years, it’s time for honest conversations about where the Celtics are, he said.
They will head into the offseason with Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown both under contract and under age 30, surrounded by a young, unproven roster with a boatload of question marks.
Here are five takeaways from the press conference:
Stevens weighs in on rumors of Jaylen Brown’s frustration
Jaylen Brown has said, on numerous occasions, that he has a good rapport with Tracy McGrady. He has said publicly that McGrady helped convince him to stay with the Celtics earlier in his career when he was thinking otherwise.
On Tuesday, McGrady said during an episode of “Cousins”, the podcast he does with his cousin Vince Carter, that Brown has been experiencing deep frustrations with the Celtics’ organization.
The first question at Stevens’s press conference was about those comments. Stevens said he has not sensed any frustration from Brown.
“I talked to Jaylen on Monday real quickly and it was nothing but positive,” Stevens said. “He has not expressed those frustrations to me. We’ve been here ten years together.”
“Obviously I love J.B., everybody around here loves J.B. Just like any of our other guys as we get to the end of the regular season, I’ll be here and my door is always open and if anybody ever wants to come in and talk about the team, their place, whatever, I’m all ears.”
What happened with Tatum ahead of Game 7
Tatum was a late scratch from the lineup ahead of Game 7.
Coach Joe Mazzulla told reporters that the decision had been made around 20 minutes before his 5:45 pre-game press conference.
Stevens added some context on what the process looked like in the moments between Games 6 and 7.
“You could see at the end of Game 6 that we thought it would dissipate and be OK the next day,” Stevens said. “He didn’t do very much on Friday, just rested, and came in on Saturday morning. I watched it and clearly it didn’t feel right.”
“I think it’s not a long, long term concern but it certainly didn’t look right when he was working out and it didn’t feel right so it made sense to be smart about that. I think the obvious answer is anytime you’re coming back from an injury like he was coming from there’s a tendency to overcompensate and there was probably a little bit of that there.”
Joe Mazzulla has room for improvement
By almost any measure, this regular season was a successful one for Mazzulla. The Celtics won 56 games without Tatum, earned the No. 2 seed, and developed a bunch of younger players who provided valuable contributions in spurts throughout the year.
Those achievements have made him a top contender for the NBA Coach of the Year award.
However, the playoffs were a different story. Boston shortened it’s rotation, failed to adjust to the return of former league MVP Joel Embiid, threw out a bizarre starting lineup in Game 7 and lost three home playoff games to the underdogs.
Stevens, who personally vetted Mazzulla’s hiring and has been generally supportive over the years, said that the coaching staff — along with the rest of the organization has to do a better job going forward.
“I think our coaching staff, like all of us, can continue to improve and get better. That said, I think they’re very good. We have to continue to provide them the resources to grow and to get better and to continue to be the best that we can be. Can’t ignore anything, the good and the bad, but there was a lot of growth this year and a lot of things we can build off of even though the ending was disappointing.”
Celtics struggled to generate good looks
Mazzulla said repeatedly throughout the series that he though the Celtics got good looks against the 76ers and simply failed to make them.
On Wednesday, Stevens said getting good looks was a struggle both during that series and in other recent ones.
The Celtics finished second-to-last among the 16 playoff teams in free throw attempts and points in the paint. They shot 43.4 percent from the field during the playoffs, which put them 13th.
“I look at each shot individually,” Stevens said. “My general feeling watching us play in each of the last two playoffs in the second round against New York, even in the first round against Orlando was that we had a really hard time generating good looks on that first shot.”
“We’ve got to figure out a way to do better at that. One of the things we’ve got to figure out is how to have more of an impact at the rim and I think we do need to add to our team to do that.”
Boston fell behind the best teams
The Celtics have taken a step back from the elite contenders in the NBA.
They’ve been upset in the playoffs twice in a row. They went 3-11 against the league’s top teams this season. Plus, the competition isn’t expected to get any easier next year.
“I think the other thing you have to consider, especially for next year, is there were a lot of teams in the NBA that were playing for draft positioning this year and that will not be the case next year,” Stevens said. “The league is going to be a lot better, the regular season is going to be a lot harder, and it will probably give you a better indication of what everybody really is.”
Khari A. Thompson
Khari Thompson covers professional sports for Boston.com. Before joining the team in 2022, Khari covered college football for The Clarion Ledger in Jackson, Miss.
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