My only interaction with Brad Stevens was brief, and it came from the back of a cramped interview room inside Hinkle Fieldhouse.
The stars behind this encounter had aligned five months earlier when the Atlantic 10 men’s basketball schedule was released, and included the following game: St. Bonaventure at Butler, Feb. 6, 2013, 7 p.m.
It was then I learned I’d be getting to cover a game inside historic Hinkle and might even be able to meet Blue II, Butler’s popular real-life Bulldog mascot.
It was then that I remembered I’d be covering a game coached by Stevens, one of the biggest names in the sport after leading Butler to back-to-back national championship game appearances in 2010 and ‘11.
Though it took place over five years ago, the memories of that game are still fresh.
On the outside, Hinkle looks more like an abandoned warehouse than one of the cathedrals of college basketball. Inside, however, it lives up to the hype, a combination of old-school charm and present-day pizazz.
The matchup, featuring the 14th-ranked Bulldogs and a Bona team in its first year without star forward Andrew Nicholson, went as you might expect — the Bonnies hung tough for a while, but Butler ultimately pulled away for a 77-58 victory.
And Stevens? He was as unassuming and seemingly approachable as he appears today.
That night, I walked into Stevens’ press conference a couple of minutes late. This was because I’d made a mad dash to talk to the Bonnies’ Demitrius Conger outside of the visiting locker room between the two formal coaches’ sessions.
After quietly taking a seat in the back, I eventually asked my question:
“What changed for you guys defensively in the last five minutes of the first half?” (Butler had held Bona to just a single field goal in that span, leading to a 39-30 advantage at the break).
He gave his answer.
I remember thinking it was meaningful to be covering a game involving Stevens. And there was a bit of luck involved: It was the first and only year that Butler was in the Atlantic 10. Five months later, the then-36-year-old was named the new coach of the Boston Celtics.
It’s become less and less hyperbolic with each Celtics playoff victory.
Stevens, with due respect to the Spurs’ Gregg Popovich, might just be the best coach in the NBA, and perhaps currently on planet Earth. If nothing else, it’s remarkable what this team has achieved since his arrival in 2013.
After bottoming out in his first campaign, Stevens led a Celtics team that was supposed to once again be one of the worst in the league to a 15-game improvement (40-42) and the playoffs in Year 2.
Last season, he guided a Boston team led by Isaiah Thomas, who’s since become a virtual castoff, to the No. 1 seed in the East and the conference finals.
And this year, he’s amid his best coaching performance yet: coaxing a team missing not one, but two superstars (Gordon Hayward and Kyrie Irving), one that was essentially left for dead at the end of the regular season when Irving went down, back into the conference finals.
In the end, this Cleveland-Boston rematch might have been more inevitable than surprising. One side boasts the best player in the world (LeBron James) while the other has the best coach.
It would be foolish to bet against James making it to an eighth straight NBA Finals, especially after what the Cavaliers did to the top-seeded Raptors in Round 2. But we’re getting to the point where you can almost say the same about Stevens.
By the middle of next week, the Cavs might well be waiting on an opponent (either the Rockets or Warriors) in their fourth straight championship appearance since James’ return. And yet, these Celtics might actually pose more of a threat to Cleveland than last year’s healthier top seed, given how good they looked in a five-game triumph over the chic-pick 76ers in the Eastern semis and how they’ve banded together in the face of those injuries.
Stevens has a group consisting of a backup point guard (Terry Rozier), a rookie (Jayson Tatum, who nearly chose hometown Saint Louis as his one-and-done stop) and an almost 32-year-old best player (Al Horford) four wins away from the championship series. In five years at Boston, he still hasn’t had a full year plus postseason with a true superstar.
It’s a strong limb to go out on, but Stevens will eventually lead the Celtics to one or more titles, and soon. In the meantime, it’ll be interesting to see just how much of a push they can give the sometimes-vulnerable Cavaliers.
I remember that Bona-Butler game from 2013 well. And yes, I did get to meet Blue II that night.
(J.P. Butler, Bradford Publishing Company group sports editor, can be reached at othbutler@gmail.com)
