Brad Stevens on flopping, his calm demeanor, and what went right for the Celtics in 2013-14


Brad Stevens was part of a panel of coaches (from left to right: U.S. womens Olympic hockey coach Katey Stone, Stevens, former U.S. womens soccer coach Tony DiCicco, Harvard mens basketball coach Tommy Amaker and moderator Jackie MacMullan) speaking at a fundraising breakfast on Friday for the Positive Coaches Alliance, and CelticsLife was on hand to cover it (click here for Steven's Q&A with the media beforehand).

The majority of the conversation was about coaching techniques in relation to youth sports, but there were a few little tidbits from Stevens that C's fans might find interesting:



When asked how he manages to stay so calm during games compared to some other NBA coaches, Stevens replied:

I don't think I'm as calm as everybody makes it out to be, the cameras catch me at the right time maybe... 
One of the things I learned when I was first a head coach was that the more prepared you are going into a game the less those little things distract you, the less you get pulled emotionally by a bad call or by a mistake by you team.  Whatever the case may be, you just move on to what's next.


In this clip Stevens talks about the difficulties of being a new head coach and taking over a team of players who'd already been there, finishing with something he thought went right for the Celtics last season:





And finally Stevens gives his take on the amount of flopping he saw this year, and the effectiveness of the league's fines as a deterrent:





As the video cuts out Jackie MacMullan was starting to mention that this Finals features two of the most egregious floppers in the game in Manu Ginobli and Shane Battier (not sure why she didn't mention Dwyane Wade?).  Then she said "he [Stevens] can't say that, but I can."  Her point being we shouldn't be disappointed with Steven's answer because he's not really at liberty to say anything else.



Follow Mark Vandeusen on twitter @LucidSportsFan