Stevens details how Tatum and Brown's growth has reached a new level

Stevens details how Tatum and Brown's growth has reached a new level originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston

From acquiring Derrick White in 2022 to swinging trades for Kristaps Porzingis and Jrue Holiday in 2023, Brad Stevens made a number of masterful moves that helped the Boston Celtics win their 18th championship.

But the Celtics wouldn’t have raised Banner 18 last June without Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown.

Tatum and Brown have blossomed into superstars in Boston. The former is a six-time All-Star and three-time All-NBA First Team selection who’s one of the top five players in basketball, while the latter is a four-time All-Star who earned MVP honors in both the 2024 Eastern Conference Finals and NBA Finals.

While the Jays have shown steady improvement since entering the league, they both took significant leaps last season — particularly in the playmaking department, where their assists per game shot up from 4.9 to 5.9 for Tatum and 3.6 to 4.6 for Brown.

In an exclusive interview with Celtics Insider Chris Forsberg, Stevens detailed how he’s seen Tatum and Brown evolve, especially over the last few seasons.

“Jayson’s been special from Day 1,” Stevens said. “I think the strength that he’s put on in the last few years has been really beneficial, not only in finishing or holding his spot — he doesn’t get knocked off his spot like he did maybe in his early years — and then also defensively in his ability to play anyone from the point guard to the center.

“A lot of times in this day and age, you’re not getting posted by centers, so you can be a little bit more creative defensively, but you still have to block them out and you still have to engage physically down in the paint, and he does a great job of that.”

That physicality has helped Tatum average 8.7 rebounds per game this season, his fourth consecutive season averaging at least eight rebounds per game after he averaged 5.0 boards per game as a rookie. Stevens also is impressed by how Tatum’s court vision has evolved.

“The experience that you go through being double-teamed, seeing different coverages — you get to the point where you’re 27 years old and you’ve pretty much seen it all,” Stevens said.

“You can see that he plays the game — we always like to say that he plays the game unconsciously competent. He doesn’t need to think about it. He sees it, he makes the right read, and he’s just gotten better and better and better.”

As for Brown, Stevens marveled at the athletic wing’s ability to guard Luka Doncic full-court during the 2024 NBA Finals, all while averaging 20.8 points per game on the offensive end.

“He’s had great growth all the way through,” Stevens said of Brown. “Again, I go back to, if you would have told me his first year that he would have been guarding the point guard in the Finals and picking up full (court) and being able to navigate and handle all those screens and everything else, I’d say that he’s capable of doing that, but there’s a lot that goes into that. And those are things that you gain from experience, too.”

Tatum and Brown are both very gifted scorers, but earlier in their careers, they’d occasionally struggle to set up their teammates and make the right passes out of defensive pressure. They’ve both made huge strides in that department over the last two seasons, however — aided in part by an excellent supporting cast built by Stevens.

“Offensively, you just continue to see the growth and the ability to, again, when those guys draw two, just make the right play,” Stevens said. “It’s such a critical part of the game, and it’s not as easy as everybody makes it out to be.”

“There’s different ways that they have to get used to reading all this when you’re ‘the guy.’ The amount of coverages that they see and the reads they have to make are different than everyone else sees, because they’re not guarded that way.”

Check out the video above for more from Stevens on Tatum and Brown’s growth.