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Celtics President Brad Stevens will trust the process for next season: ‘We have an incredibly resilient group’ – Basketball Insiders

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During his 2022/23 campaign assessment, Celtics President of Basketball Operations Brad Stevens says he will trust this team’s process into the upcoming season. This means his objectives are to keep Joe Mazzulla in his position as head coach, bolster the staff, and maintain the roster’s core intact. 

So, for the most part, the front office’s leader seemed satisfied with the results of this tournament. Despite the struggles of the last-second coaching change, the squad got off to a 21-5 start of the campaign and led the league as the top seed for most of the regular season.

The team was also the second-best in both offensive and defensive ratings, but Stevens did show remorse on how they weren’t able to maintain this high standard during the Eastern Conference Final clash against the Heat.

“We have an incredibly resilient group,” Stevens claimed with pride. “They’re tough, with their backs against the wall they are amazing. At the same time, we came up short.”

One of the most outstanding takes for the team’s President was how his squad played under pressure, especially as they almost produced a never-seen-before historic comeback against Miami, recovering from a 3-0 deficit and tying the series.

“It’s about putting that full 48 together, and that’s shared results,” he assured. “That’s on all of us. It’s not just coaches, it’s not just players; I look at how can I help everybody do that better, so we all play a role in that and we all have to play better for 48 minutes if we want to win, and every game is worth one in the playoffs. We saw what we were like with our backs against the wall. With the exception of Game 7 (against Miami), we were pretty good.”

About Joe Mazzulla, he can’t help but praise the coach after displaying the league’s best basketball after a rough start without former trainter Ime Udoka, who led the team to the NBA Finals last year. However, the current coach made his debut and guided Boston to a 57-win regular season.

Stevens first brought Mazzulla on board four years ago as one of his assistants, and called the 34-year-old a “terrific leader,” who then started his process to one day sit in the head coach’s chair.

“When you consider the position he was thrust into and the overall accomplishments of the group, I thought he did a really good job,” the President said. “When you look at it in the big picture and having a team that was second in offense, second in defense, won 57 games and (had) a chance to go to the NBA Finals on your home court, there’s a lot of direction and organization that goes into that.”

Stevens mentioned the importance of keeping the squad’s core for the next season, but bolster the staff

Even though their offseason just started this week, President Brad Stevens has no time to lose and is beginning to develop the team’s grand scheme for the upcoming campaign.

“I always needed a whole summer of planning,” he said. “A whole summer of thinking and organizing thoughts and being able to catch yourself ready to emphasize what you want to emphasize on a daily basis.”

For now, the continuity of players like Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum, and Marcus Smart is fundamental, as they’ve been together for six full seasons now. The rest of the squad has been there for a long time too, as Robert Williams just completed his fifth competition in Boston and Al Horford for five of the last seven.

“At the end of the day, we love our foundation, we love our core and that’s really our focus and priority,” Stevens said about the team who has appeared in five trips to the Eastern Conference Finals in the last seven years.



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WATCH Stephen Curry Hit Consecutive 3-Pointers For 5+ Minutes

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Watch Golden State Warriors star Stephen Curry knock down 3-pointers for over five straight minutes without missing. Our team here at Basketball Insiders counted 102 consecutive 3s. For those wondering, the video is not edited or being played on a loop. This is real.

However, how come Curry can drain at least 100 3-pointers without missing while shooting only 42.7% from beyond the arc in the 2022-23 season? Well, there are no defenders, the pressure is nonexistent, and he’s not playing through any injuries here. Watch the video below.

According to a few NBA betting sites, the Golden State Warriors hold seventh-shortest odds to win next season’s championship in 2024. Check out which sportsbooks are showing better odds for the Denver Nuggets, Phoenix Suns, and Los Angeles Lakers.

Stephen Curry, 35, makes this look so easy. The nine-time All-Star made 56 starts in the 2022-23 season, averaging 29.4 points, a career-high 6.1 rebounds, and 6.3 assists per game. The Davidson College product also shot 49.3% from the floor and 42.7% outside the arc.

On Nov. 16, in the Warriors’ 130-119 loss to Phoenix, the 14-year veteran recorded a season-high 50 points in 37 minutes of action. Plus, he shot 17-of-28 (60.7%) from the field and knocked down seven 3-pointers. Curry tied Michael Jordan for the second-most 50-point games after turning 30 years old, with six.

Watch Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry swish consecutive 3-pointers for over five minutes without missing

In Golden State’s 106-101 win over the Cleveland Cavaliers on Nov. 11, Curry extended his NBA record to 200 consecutive regular-season games with at least one made 3-pointer. His 3-point streak dates back to Dec. 1, 2018, against the Detroit Pistons.

Furthermore, Curry became the oldest NBA player (34 years, 322 days old) to record back-to-back 30-point, 10-assist games in league history last season. The two-time MVP broke Wilt Chamberlain’s franchise record for career field goals made (7,216) with 7,222.

Curry is already Golden State’s franchise leader in points (21,712), assists (5,740), steals (1,419), field goal attempts (15,222), games played (882), 3-pointers made (3,390), 3-point attempts (7,929), turnovers (2,777), and free throw percentage (90.9%).

While the guard finished just third in 3-pointers (273) last season, he also suffered a left shoulder subluxation a couple of months into the season. The injury caused him to miss 11 games from mid-December through early January.

Stephen Curry went on to miss another 11 games in February and March because of partial tears to his left superior tibiofibular ligaments and interosseous membrane, as well as a contusion.

In addition to the eight-time All-NBA member winning two 3-point shooting contests in 2015 and 2021, Curry has led the NBA in 3-pointers seven times throughout his career: 2012-13 (272), 2013-14 (261), 2014-15 (286), 2015-16 (402), 2016-17 (324), 2020-21 (337), and 2021-22 (285).

To watch other NBA-related miscellaneous videos, go to the main page.


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Nick Nurse reveals why he signed for Sixers despite having higher offers

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Ever since Nick Nurse became a coach in the NBA, he was always part of the same organization. It all started in 2013 as an assistant, where he remained in this position during 5 years until he finally got a break at the head of the coaching staff. That same season in 2018/19, he took the Raptors to their first-ever NBA title after leading the Eastern Conference with a 58-24 record and then winning 16 out of their 24 playoff games.

After conquering the league’s trophy, Toronto struggled to get past his division’s Semifinals, and eventually decided to drop their coach at the end of this past campaign. Just as Philadelphia also decided to part ways with Doc Rivers this summer, they were tempted with signing Nurse even though he had recieved many offers.

On a recent episode of player Patrick Beverley’s podcast, the guard asked his new trainer if the rumors were true that he “turned down a lot of money” to coach the Sixers. The room burst in laughter when Nurse let out a blunt “maybe” as his answer.

“Just thought that the fit was right with me,” the 56-year-old said about his new club. “Love the ownership. Loved my connection with Daryl Morey. Obviously, he was in Houston when I was coaching Rio Grande. Just heard nothing but good things about Josh (Harris) and David (Blitzer). Obviously, I coached against them a lot. I think it’s a good team. A very good team and some awesome pieces here. So, here we are.”

About his coaching style, Nurse promises to keep his innovative schemes in Philly until he finds the correct formula to transform his roster into a winning team.

“The funny thing about all that stuff is, almost always it comes to me on the spur of the moment as to what’s needed right now… If it doesn’t work, whatever funky thing we try, we crumple it up real quick and throw it in the throat in the waste bin and don’t revisit it, but we got to try a bunch of stuff to see what we can come up with,” he said.

Coach Nurse speaks on what he’ll be expecting out of Paul Reed and Tyrese Maxey this upcoming season

As the new 76ers coach is getting to know his new players, he’s already anticipated what he wants from certain players and the new roles they’ll need to adjust too. In Paul Reed‘s case, for example, he wants him to trust in his offensive attributes.

“I do keep a pretty loose lid on the roles if that makes any sense because I think there is guys—there’s some guys maybe they never shot 3-pointer before and they’re not bad and we may need them to shoot more 3s or, or whatever it is. Paul Reed would be a good example for us for that,” he shared.

As for rising star Tyrese Maxey, Nurse believes he can take advantage of his quickness to help support the Sixers on the defensive side of the floor.

“Yeah, we’ll start on the defensive,” he expressed. “I think he’s been blessed with all that speed and quickness and I think we need to figure out a way for him to use it for a little bit more of disruptive situations. I think he’s so fast that he can go get the ball a little bit more, right?”





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J.J. Redick explains why Mavs’ inking the return of Seth Curry is a ‘perfect fit’

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The Mavericks were probably the biggest disappointment of the 2022/23 season, finishing with a 38-44 record and missing out on the playoffs, despite the fact that they invested in superstar Kyrie Irving to complete a blockbuster partnership with Luka Doncic.

The Dallas administration felt the need to improve their roster this summer, and among those various trades they decided to reunite with Seth Curry, who already had two previous spells wearing the Mavs’ jersey. The 33-year-old just signed a two-year, $8 million contract after playing the last campaign with the Brooklyn Nets.

In the most recent episode of his own “The Old Man & the Three” podcast, J.J. Redick recognized this acquisition as one of the top under-the-radar signings of this current offseason.

“My first one is, I think, really under-the-radar, even though he’s historically the best three point shooter in terms of percentage in NBA history, and that’s Seth Curry,” the ESPN analyst said.

The season after his stint in Brooklyn, he performed one of his most productive years with the Sixers, averaging 15.0 points and 3.4 assists. During that 2022 summer, the veteran underwent ankle surgery and wasn’t able to participate in his team’s training camp before the start of the past campaign.

“Seth had ankle surgery in May of 2022, and that was when he was coming off the best season of his career. He averaged 15.0 points per game for Philly, averaged just under 15 points per game in the 19 games he played in Brooklyn after the trade, has ankle surgery, comes back after the season has already started, which is always difficult to not have the normal routine, the training camp, the early season, the preseason, all that stuff.

“He had a fine season. Minutes were down. I don’t think he was ever really himself,” Redick explained.

In spite of his latest ankle injury, Redick is impressed by the way Curry remained an efficient three-point shooter

The veteran guard has been putting up the best shooting stats of his career in the last couple of years, despite the fact that he had to recover from his ankle injury in 2022. Former player J.J. Redick admitted he was impressed by his consistency, considering most athletes lose confidence after overcoming a health issue.

“Last season, he still shot 40.5 percent from three. The reason I love this, last time he was in Dallas, which was the 2019-20 season, he shot 45.2 percent from three and averaged a little over 12 points per game,” the analyst said. “He was 48.1 percent on catch and shoot threes and when you think about the way this offense is going to function, it will primarily be pick and roll and ISO. That is what Kyrie does, that is what Luka does.”

In the video above, check out one of Curry’s best-ever performances in Dallas, scoring an outstanding 37 points against the Heat three years ago.

“Having him as one of your spot up shooters, having him maybe even some movement sets, the hand back to Luka coming off a flare screen, like they’re going to figure out ways to use him,” Redick explained. “I don’t know that [Curry] starts, but I think he helps this team. And a couple of things on Dallas, when they made that run to the Western Conference finals two seasons ago, it was primarily with switchable defenders and shooting.”





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