"All I want us to do is play tough."

[clover]

Here's a quote from Brad Stevens in today's Herald:

“All I want us to do is play tough,” said coach Brad Stevens. “You know, do everything within the rules, but play tough. Obviously you’re going to foul some, but play as tough as you can with as much physicality within the rules as you can.

“I thought (against Sacramento), we were really aggressive. We really tried, and we really put it all out there. We just came up a little short.”

http://bostonherald.com/sports/celtics_nba/boston_celtics/2014/02/celtics_rub_salt_lake_city_into_wounds

I'd be happy with that. Danny's talked of late about how important it is for the likes of Humphries and Bass to show young guys like KO how to play and train really hard and to be tough.

Sounds like that's become Stevens's mission as well. Can he toughen up KO physically and Green mentally by the end of the year?

Will he get Rondo back to his old defensively-tough ways? Humphries, Wallace and Bass seem to pretty much always play hard and with some toughness to them. Sully's in there fighting with what he's got too.

It's not actually that KO's loafing out there, you can see him thinking hard and moving about--but he does need to toughen up and play consistently hard physically.

Can Stevens and the Humphries types on the team get that through to the rest of them?