National Basketball Association

Stevens, Blatt traveled varying paths to NBA Playoffs

Published Apr. 22, 2015 6:44 p.m. ET

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Seven of the 16 head coaches in this year's NBA Playoffs are former NBA players. The vast majority of NBA coaches are NBA lifers, having worked their way through the assistant coaching ranks -- and in some cases the video room or a scouting job if they didn't come up through the playing ranks -- on their way to the lead chair.

And then there are Brad Stevens and David Blatt, who are coaching against one another in the Boston Celtics-Cleveland Cavaliers first-round series.

Blatt came across the Atlantic to the Cavaliers after coaching around the globe. Stevens came to the Celtics after five years in the Horizon League and one in the Atlantic 10.

Stevens was 36 when the Celtics hired him away from Butler University in July 2013. He's still the NBA's youngest coach, and after the Celtics went 25-57 last season and started 16-30 this season, they finished with a flurry to make the playoffs.

Blatt, 55, was hired by the Cavaliers last summer. On the day he coached his first NBA Summer League Game -- in jeans and sneakers -- LeBron James announced he was returning to the Cavaliers this season, forever changing the franchise and instantly changing expectations for Blatt and everyone else involved. The Cavs are the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference Playoffs but are the team everybody's watching.

While three Cavs starters had never played in a playoff game before last weekend, Blatt has been quick to point out that though the team's head coach is an NBA rookie he is not new to high stakes games.

"I've never coached in a seven-game playoff series (but) I've coached a five-game playoff series, so that's different, and this is extremely difficult," Blatt said. "Every challenge has its own dynamic and its own demands. Like I said before and I'll say again, I'm still in the process of learning and of working hard to be the best coach I can be in this league."

Blatt, who won five Israeli League titles and was a four-time league coach of the year, led Maccabi Tel Aviv to the Euroleague title last year. He also coached the Russian national team from 2006-12.

A native of the Boston area who played collegiately at Princeton, Blatt is back in the United States for the first time in almost 30 years. His family is still in Israel; his three daughters made the trip to Cleveland last weekend for their dad's first playoff game in the NBA; Blatt's son stayed back -- because he had a basketball game, of course.

And Blatt is quick to remind anyone who asks that he's coached in and won a lot of big basketball games.

"I don't really know if people are aware of just what kind of different competitions I've been in based on how they approach my rookie season here in the NBA," Blatt said. "It's kind of funny to me. You have to recognize that I've been on playoff runs that are national team-oriented. I've coached teams that have played 11 games in 15 or 16 days in order to win a medal or European championship.

"They don't have anything like that in the NBA. That's extremely difficult."

Beating James, Kyrie Irving and the Cavaliers figures to be difficult for an overmatched Celtics team that trails 2-0 heading into Thursday night's Game Three in Boston. Stevens, though, looks like a rising star with a team that was 9-14 early in the season when it traded longtime star guard Rajon Rondo and has used 23 different players this season through various injuries and roster moves. Stevens finished fourth in the NBA Coach of the Year voting revealed earlier this week.

After a mostly secret 10-day flirtation and negotiation period in July 2013, Stevens signed a six-year, $22 million contract with the Celtics. He was an assistant at Butler for seven seasons before taking over as head coach and winning 166 games -- the most ever by a Div. I coach in his first six years on the job -- and leading Butler to back-to-back appearances in the national title game in 2010-11.

He spurned multiple overtures by richer and more recognizable college programs before taking the Celtics job. Stevens was very good in a one-and-done postseason environment at the college level -- he was 12-5 in the NCAA tournament, more often as the lower-seeded team -- and though he acknowledges the NBA postseason is a different environment, he sees preparing his team as the same job it's always been.

"Anytime, whether it's digging in at the end of the season and really evaluating how your team played good and bad, or whether it's getting ready for a game in January or getting ready for a game now, you just enjoy the process of preparing for a game as a coach," Stevens said. "It's kind of the sick mindedness of this profession.

You, like, enjoy that, watching that film over and over and over.

"At the end of the day you have one team to prepare for. You might watch it two or three times but eventually you're seeing the same things over and over."

When Butler played at, say, Youngstown State or Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Stevens didn't face 75 reporters after the game. He also didn't face LeBron James during the game.

Being around James is new to Blatt, too. So is a playoff bracket that could involve four best-of-seven series. The schedule is different. The road trips and challenges are different. The Cavs were 19-20 in January before making some moves, getting James back from injury and starting to play like a team that looks good enough to play into June.

"There are stars and then there are superstars in this league," Blatt said. "There is a little bit of a difference but I'm lucky to be coaching superstars that are also good guys, with their hearts and minds in the right place. Sure, it's a little bit different but when they're good character people, it's not a difficult thing. It's a joyful thing."