Celts' Stevens anticipates players will accept their roles

BOSTON — Doc Rivers knows as well as anyone what can be accomplished when immense talent meets immense shared sacrifice.

In 2007, Rivers was the Celtics coach when Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett came to town to play with Paul Pierce. There was Rajon Rondo. There was Kendrick Perkins. There were guys like Eddie House and James Posey, who had been NBA starters. There were youngsters like Glen Davis and Leon Powe who wanted to prove themselves. [...]

BOSTON — Doc Rivers knows as well as anyone what can be accomplished when immense talent meets immense shared sacrifice.

In 2007, Rivers was the Celtics coach when Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett came to town to play with Paul Pierce. There was Rajon Rondo. There was Kendrick Perkins. There were guys like Eddie House and James Posey, who had been NBA starters. There were youngsters like Glen Davis and Leon Powe who wanted to prove themselves.

For at least one year anyway, Rivers got all the skill, and all the egos, to buy into the idea of “Ubuntu” — one team of individuals all together for one greater goal.

As this year’s Celtics team prepares to start training camp in three weeks with All-Stars Gordon Hayward and Kyrie Irving returning to a squad that reached Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals without them, the spirit of “Ubuntu” will once again have to be strong.

“I think we’ve got a really good locker room,” Celtics coach Brad Stevens said on Tuesday night as he shared the stage with Rivers at the annual ABCD Boston fundraiser to raise money for underprivileged families. “I don’t think it’s any secret to anybody that there are only 240 minutes in a game. If we all struggle with that, more than just the human nature of being disappointed if you get taken out — that’s OK, that’s part of it — but if we all struggle with that, we won’t be very good.

“And, if we don’t [struggle with it], we’ll have a chance to be pretty good.”

Rivers doesn’t anticipate that will be a problem for this team.

“I would be very surprised at that,” the Los Angeles Clippers coach said. “They seem very close. The way you can tell a close team is how hard they play defense. Close teams play hard defensively. They play hard. They are as competitive, and as tough-nosed, a defensive team as there is in the league. That’s only because they get along. I couldn’t imagine them not getting along.”

Stevens said on Tuesday he expects Hayward (ankle), Irving (knee) and Daniel Theis (knee) to all be full go when the team begins practice on Sept. 25. With the entire playoff rotation also back from last year’s extended run, it will be a season of tremendous expectations.

“When we talk about the roles, it’s not about proving ourselves,” Stevens said. “It’s about how we can all help each other win. You have a chance with a team that has a lot of good depth. That depth has to be a positive. That’s the way we’re going to approach it.”

A year removed from the blockbuster Irving-Isaiah Thomas trade that left Stevens with only four players back from the previous season, the coach indicated this summer, in which the team retained free agent Marcus Smart, as well as Aron Baynes, went exactly how he hoped it would.

“We’re thrilled to have [Smart] back and we’re thrilled to have him back for a long time,” the coach said. “We really went into free agency hoping that would be the case. We all know what Marcus brings to the table.

“I keep going back to one of the moments when ... he entered the [first-round playoff] game against Milwaukee [off thumb surgery] and the first thing he did was he dove on the floor. Everybody says they want it, and want to do that type of stuff, but he does it every day.”

As Rivers knew a decade ago, Stevens knows he has the players who each can score 30 points on a given night. He has plenty of guys worthy of playing 30 minutes. But it is the willingness to make those types of plays to complement the play-making of the team’s stars that will be the difference.