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The play Stevens drew up had speedy point guard Isaiah Thomas collecting the ball on the move near midcourt and trying to finish at the rim. Thomas encountered traffic near the hoop and — whether he muscled up a shot attempt or simply tried to pass (he told reporters in Toronto he was trying to do the latter) — he managed to get the ball to Smart, who had crashed on the baseline, corralled the ball before it could sail away, tap-danced into position, and quickly laid the ball in just before the buzzer.

“We knew we had a timeout when we drew up the first play,” explained Stevens. “I didn’t really want to inbound it if our first option wasn’t open, and it wasn’t open. We were trying to go to Evan [Turner], and they smothered it. They actually switched, and it made it a worse matchup for us. I knew right when I saw them switch that I was going to call timeout, but then Marcus threw it in, so I got [the timeout] as quickly as I could; it probably wasn’t quick enough.”

Making them look Smart: Stevens draws up another winner

Yet another gem from Brad Stevens. With 2.6 seconds left, it’s scary see the ball being in-bounded behind half court, but when your best scorer is 5’9″, you have to use the space and speed as a means for getting open. To me, it looked pretty clear that Lou Williams fouled Isaiah at the rim, but things worked out thanks to Marcus Smart listening to Brad’s orders to crash the boards on the weakside.

Besides drawing up the game winner — recognizing the first attempt was going to fail and calling a timeout was equally clutch. You don’t see that too often in late-game situations. With such little time left, coaches often tend to let a shot go up rather than redesigning and risking not being able to inbound the ball cleanly. Maybe Stevens was inspired by Toronto using Lou Williams in a similar fashion earlier in overtime, or maybe this is something the team’s been waiting to use. Either way, Brad Stevens is climbing the ATO mastermind rankings quickly.

With last night’s win, the C’s now move back into 8th and are a half game back from 7th. For the first time in a long time, the team actually gets to rest more than a single day, as the next game isn’t until Wednesday in Detroit. They now have three full days to rest and develop a game plan.

Related Links: Brad Stevens is a super genious

Page 2: Now seven straight on second half of back-to-backs

Lost in the shuffle of last night’s theatrics: Celtics have now won SEVEN straight games on the second half of back-to-backs.

— Brian Robb (@CelticsHub) April 5, 2015

//platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsThat’s an insane accomplishment. I believe this makes them 10-1 in their last 11, eight of which were on the road. Being able to play two games in a row is difficult enough, let alone traveling to another city during the time to rest. More credit to Brad for keeping his team capable physically and mentally.

There’s talk of altering the schedule in the future by either shortening preseason or even lowering the number of games played. Part of the reason being to eliminate back-to-backs — which is too bad because the Celtics are damn good at them.

And finally, old friend Jeff Green threw this down last night

Strong dunkface.

The rest of the links:

CSNNE – Celtics continue to control their playoff fate

ESPN – Kentucky Defeated

Grantland – Jalen and Jacoby