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Q&A: Celtics coach Brad Stevens reflects on 2014-15 season

The Celtics are 65-99 in Brad Stevens’s two seasons as coach.Getty Images

After losing in the first round of the NBA playoffs to the Cavaliers, Celtics coach Brad Stevens is settling in for his second offseason as coach of the Celtics. On Friday afternoon he sat down for an interview with the Globe. Here is a segment of the discussion:

How would you assess the playoff loss to the Cavaliers?

I’m disappointed that we never gave ourselves a chance to win at the end. We were close. We had a couple of close shots, but we really never had the ball, or were on defense to get a stop to win the game. That’s the one thing that we didn’t get the experience out of that playoff series that I’m disappointed in. We did some good things. We weren’t very good in transition and we weren’t great rebounding. And that was a theme the whole series.

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How was your second year different from your first?

There’s more of a foundation moving forward. You’re doing a roster review and have a pretty good idea that at least a good amount of these guys will be back. That continuity is helpful . . . You know, two years after starting together, Avery Bradley knows exactly what I mean when I make a suggestion, or I know exactly where he’s coming from when he says, ‘What if we guard Kyrie Irving this way?’ I just think there’s so much more now you can do, because you’re all speaking the same language.

You’ve been pretty widely praised this year. What does that mean to you?

It’s very nice and it’s very flattering. I do take some of it, obviously, with a grain of salt, because you’re going to say nice things to the media. But I do appreciate it and it does mean a lot. And it means a lot coming from competition. It means a lot coming from guys in the locker room. But it means a lot more in a personal text or an e-mail, when it’s not being broadcast. I really appreciate it, I’m really flattered by it, but I guess I know I have a lot more work to do, so I’m not like over the top on it.

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You’re known as a big analytics guy, but fairly often this season you clearly pointed out that it’s hardly your end-all. How would you describe how you use advanced stats?

I am even more convinced now than ever that analytics are a very important tool for helping you get over the hump. It’s not nearly as important to work ethic, culture, team cohesion, just a general buy-in to one another. Those are the most important things.

What are you looking forward to most as you attack this offseason?

I like the draft. I think it’s a fun thing to watch guys, to come in to learn, to meet them in interviews, to talk to them. I know a lot of them or at least a lot about them. I know their coaches well. I probably have better relationships with their coaches than a lot of guys, because I sat in recruiting circles with these guys forever and ever. And then free agency, we didn’t get a chance to experience it much last year because we didn’t have any [salary cap] space. And we knew that. We made a couple of calls but really we didn’t have any chance, because we didn’t have very much money available.

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You’re close to Billy Donovan, who was just hired to coach the Thunder. How did your relationship develop?

Right when I became head coach at Butler, they invited me to talk [at Florida]. We’d almost beaten them in the Sweet 16 when they had [Joakim] Noah and [Al] Horford, so they invited me to their coaching clinic and I got a chance to listen to all these NBA guys and listen to Billy. And they asked me to talk. I’ll never forget Billy raising his hand and asking me a question. I’m like, ‘What the? Why would you ask me a question?’ This guy just won two national championships, it’s 9 o’clock at night and he’s asking a guy that doesn’t know anything about basketball a question. Like, that’s why he’s really good. I think that’s why he’s great. I’m a huge Billy Donovan fan.

How are you adjusting to Boston?

I love it. I love the area, the ocean being around the corner, the Red Sox games, just all the different places you can visit. The golf is great. And there’s just so much to explore that I haven’t come close to exploring, and I don’t think I will, not in one summer, at least.

I find five or six restaurants and I just constantly order from them or go there. I don’t change much. I need to do more of a sampling of the entire North End. I need to get to a couple restaurants of people that I know that own. But I don’t go to very many places. I’ve got a 5-year-old and a 9-year-old. I drive here to the office, I drive to TD Garden, I drive to get gas and I drive to get coffee and that’s it. I drive to church. That’s about it.

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Adam Himmelsbach can be reached at adam.himmelsbach@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @adamhimmelsbach