After receiving praise from former Boston Celtics head coach (and current Louisville Cardinals head man) Rick Pitino for being patient with the team's rebuilding process, head coach Brad Stevens had a quip at the ready.
"I don’t think patient would be the first word that anybody that knows me would describe me as," Stevens said, via Chris Forsberg of ESPN Boston. "But I think that’s anybody in competitive sports; I’m not unique in that regards."
However, that's not to say that Stevens wasn't flattered by the kind words from one of college basketball's most enduring coaching personalities.
"I heard what he said, and it was really nice," Stevens said. "I think he’s a really good coach. I had a chance to coach against him twice and so I feel like he knows the game. He’s been through so much, both in the NBA and in the college game, so I really appreciated his perspective on things.
"When I first decided to come [to the NBA], I knew that there was going to be a building process; we talked about that. You can’t project a timeline and that’s the toughest [part]. But there are days like Thursday and Friday, back-to-back, that you sneak out those 1-point games and you just hope that, again, maybe that spearheads something. Maybe that gets you going in a good direction. That’s something that you can point to with young guys and maybe continue to grind, fight, and do tough things. I don’t know how patient anybody is in this business. But I do enjoy watching progress being made. I think that the focus, for me, has to be on continuing to coach this team as well as I possibly can every day and continue to coach the individuals as well as we can as a staff everyday. It is hard to keep that in mind when things don’t go your way. But you’ve got to do it."
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