Celtics coach Brad Stevens is proud of his team despite the defeat against the Cleveland Cavaliers in Game 7 of the Eastern Finals and at the same time grateful to be a part of this team. Nevertheless, his retirement doesn’t leave him completely cold. AL Horford and Jayson Tatum expressed their pride in the team.
“I feel privileged to be a part of it. Just being surrounded by the boys every day. I’m totally grateful to all the players – they’ve been amazing the whole time,” Stevens said at the post-game press conference. Rookie Jayson Tatum in particular predicts a rosy future for the 41-year-old: “He can get even better, that’s the funny thing about it. “He’s uncompromising and obviously has a special talent for putting the ball in the basket.”
Nevertheless, he was also disappointed that the dream of the finals had failed so close to the finish straight. “Every ending is hard. I think that applies to all 29 teams that don’t win. No matter how good the season was, if you don’t win a title in the end, it’s gonna be a disappointing ending.”
Stevens was also amazed at the breathtaking performance of LeBron James. “He’s incredible. We played the last two seasons until May 25th or 27th and we started at the end of September. In this time you have to be focused every day and he has done this for the eighth time in a row. This is crazy.”
All-Star Al Horford was also disappointed, but nevertheless drew positive conclusions from the strong playoff run of his Celtics: “Of course we are disappointed. We had our chances, but it just wasn’t meant to be. Still, I’ve said all those playoffs that we’re learning as a team. We haven’t been in this situation as a team before, so it was a great learning experience for us. I know it makes us better.”
Jayson Tatum, who was Boston’s top scorer in the playoffs with an average of 18.5 points, saw things similarly. “We just had a great run and it was fun to play with the team day after day. I would have gone to war with every one of those guys on our team every day. I knew that we had to give everything every night, no matter what the circumstances were, and we showed that throughout the season. “Like Al said, we don’t have to bend over anything.”