John Wall is envious of Brad Stevens whiteboard proficiency

John Wall probably wasn't in the best of moods after botching a buzzer beating layup that would have sent his Wizards into overtime against the Celtics Saturday, but that didn't stop him from complimenting Brad Stevens after the game.

"He's a hell of a coach, man," Wall told reporters in Washington. "He's a young coach, but that's one hell of a coach that knows the game real well. Even at the end of the game, we lined up in different formation that he hadn't seen and he called out our play before I got the ball. I heard him calling it out.

While Wall is potentially wrong about Stevens having never seen their set before (it's possible he had seen it on video), it's incredible if he is correct. The feel and anticipation for the game he must have to translate that live is wild.

Added Wall: "He does a heck of a job calling stuff that you wouldn't expect. We all thought it would be a high pick-and-roll to Isaiah Thomas or an [isolation] and he ran a play we weren't expecting [on Crowder's winning layup]."

The first quote shows how good Stevens is at anticipating what the opponent is going to do, this second quote illustrates how he also anticipates what the opponent thinks he is going to do. We are lucky to have him and his whiteboard, and the league is taking big notice of it this season. John Wall knows what it's like to have less than an expert on the whiteboard, you could almost hear the envy in his voice.




Photo Credit: Winslow Townson/Associated Press



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