Brad Stevens won’t clarify Celtics’ vaccination status as playoffs loom
Stevens also talked about Jayson Tatum picking up his 13th technical foul against the Miami Heat, saying the Heat's physical style "got to" Tatum and the Celtics.
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The Celtics might have other issues to worry about aside from whether or not they can secure the Eastern Conference’s No. 1 seed. But president of basketball operations Brad Stevens isn’t willing to talk about one of the emerging elephants in the room.
After recent reports surfaced this week questioning whether some Celtics, including Jayson Tatum, Al Horford and Jaylen Brown, would be unavailable to play in Toronto for a potential playoff series due to Canada’s strict new vaccination guidelines, Stevens and the Celtics have been asked over the past few days about the team’s vaccination status.
During his weekly appearance on 98.5 The Sports “Toucher and Rich” show on Friday, Stevens wouldn’t reveal anything about the team’s vaccination rate or any looming eligibility problems.
“I know what you’re getting at, obviously, with this,” Stevens said in response to a question from one of the hosts. “As an organization we’ve said from day one, we’re not going to comment on our team vaccination status or individual vaccination status…I feel like our job is to make sure that we continue to educate and make sure to keep everybody abreast of those changes, and the NBA has done a great job of that, all across the league.
“Anyways, I know that’s not, probably, the exact answer you’re looking for, but that’s where we stand and that’s all I really have to say about it.”
The Celtics have largely avoided using any specifics about vaccination statuses for much of the season. But Canada’s new guidelines, which prohibit unvaccinated athletes from traveling to the country as of Jan. 15, remove some of the mystery. Only Tatum, Brown, Horford and injured center Robert Williams didn’t travel with the team, suggesting everyone else is currently vaccinated.
Tatum said he is vaccinated during the team’s preseason media day, while Horford said this week he’d be “ready to play wherever,” stopping short of confirming whether or not he is vaccinated. Brown, whose status is unknown, said earlier this season that the decision to get the vaccine was a “personal choice.” NBC Sports Boston’s Chris Mannix suggested Horford and Brown, who have both entered the league’s health and safety protocols this season (Horford has done so twice), are unvaccinated, though Mannix noted that “can still change” before the playoffs.
Sources also told ESPN that Williams, who is currently out with a torn meniscus, is vaccinated and therefore could play on the road if he returned in time for a possible second-round series against Toronto.
Stevens did, however, have more to say about the Celtics’ crushing loss to the Miami Heat on Wednesday night, which wasted a golden opportunity to seize the conference’s top seed. Boston now sits in third place and is two games behind Miami with five games left to play.
The Heat’s physical, tough playing style — and the effect it had on Celtics players — especially caught Stevens’s eye when assessing the defeat.
“I think that game was one we haven’t been in for a while,” the Celtics’ president of basketball operations admitted. “It was close, tough and physical. We haven’t had one of those in a while, so it was good for us. That was the kind of game we’ll play in the playoffs and it was good experience.”
In particular, Stevens zeroed in on how the Heat harrassed star Jayson Tatum, who, despite scoring 23 points on 9-of-17 shooting, missed all five of his three-point attempts and attempted just three shots in the fourth quarter against an aggressive blitzing strategy.
Tatum also picked up his 13th technical foul of the season for arguing with referees in the first half. (Marcus Smart was ejected in the waning seconds of the game.)
“This isn’t the guy he wants to be,” Stevens said of Tatum. “He knows that and he gets frustrated. I think what happened the other night was it was a physical game that wasn’t going our way and that got to him.”
The Celtics’ star, for his part, acknowledged his need to refrain from picking up more technical fouls as he’ll have to automatically sit out a game if he earns a 16th technical by the end of the season. But he also said it’s “an emotional game” and suggested not every expression requires a response from officials.
“There’s 20,000 people in there; it’s hard to whisper and be relaxed. Guys are passionate,” he said. “We care about what’s going on, so obviously we can come off aggressive at times and I’m aware of that, but that time I was genuinely asking a question. I guess I asked too many times.
“It’s easy to look back now after the game and say, ‘There’s a lot of s— we could’ve done better.’ But anybody who’s played in the NBA or played a professional sport knows sometimes you get caught up in things.”
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