The team openly admits that their game 3 win was inspired by a Kevin Garnett motivational speech - and suddenly Brad Stevens is off the hook?
Brad Stevens is the coach of the team. If all it took to inspire the team to win was a deep motivational speech, then why couldn't Brad Stevens have offered that up two games earlier and avoided this situation to begin with?
He's the coach. He's supposed to be THE motivating force behind the team. You think Doc Rivers wouldn't have lit a major fire under this team's butt after the first loss in Boston? Hell, he would have done it in the locker room at half time.
The telling point to me is that after loosing game 2, Boston players were calling game 3 a "must win". Seriously? You are the #1 seed, playing a #8 seed, on your home court. You are fighting to keep homecourt advantage, which could prove a key in the series. The instant you drop game 1 at home, game 2 should be seen as a "must win". It shouldn't take two straight losses on your home court to drill home that mentality.
That's where I Stevens concerns me, as a coach. As I've said before, I feel like is too nice. Too polite. Too positive. When they lost game 1, Stevens should have been drilling it deep into the heads of the players that a second loss on their home court, against a #8 seed, would be absolutely unacceptable. That going back to Chicago down 0-2 is not an option.
Instead I'm sure he gave them some nice polite speech about how they shouldn't worry, it's only one game, it's a four game series, it;s not over, there's still plenty of games left, etc. Hell with that! The team needed a butt kicking and a reality check, and it took Kevin Garnett to give it to them.
Edit:
Rondo's injury also played no small part in this...so Steven was basically rescued by Kevin Garnett's motivational speaking and Rajon Rondo's broken thumb.