OKLAHOMA CITY -- Boston Celtics coach Brad Stevens said it's "sick" that somebody phoned in a bomb threat involving his team's chartered plane on Saturday night but praised the flight's crew and the officers who greeted the team on the tarmac in Oklahoma City for easing concerns in a tense situation.
Stevens said Celtics travel and equipment manager John Connor and a flight attendant approached him about an hour before Boston's plane was scheduled to touch down at Oklahoma City's Will Rogers World Airport on Saturday night. Stevens was briefed on the threat involving the team plane and said he was advised to not alarm those on board while the plane staff began an initial inspection.
"I mean, it wasn't enjoyable," Stevens said. "Only a few of us knew about an hour left in the flight or so and I thought the staff on board was great at being reassuring about all the checks they had made prior to leaving. And swiftly looking, without drawing much attention to themselves, while we were in the air. Once we landed, we were greeted by a throng of police officers and fire trucks, and were on the tarmac for a while, then went to the fire station there and everybody was great.
"It was a unique experience because everybody's getting interviewed and everything else. Obviously, a lot of great people do their jobs well and reassure you that everything is going to be OK."
Stevens, speaking before a 99-96 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder, said the in-flight staff were reassuring based on the confidence of their preflight inspections, but he said it still was heavy news to receive.
"Certainly it's not a very comfortable situation when you're in the middle of the air but, again, it's sick that somebody would make that call," Stevens said. "But everybody that we interacted with, from the people on the plane to the people once we landed, were terrific."
Celtics players and staffers were interviewed by FBI agents at the airport before being bused to the team hotel, where their bags were delivered after a more thorough inspection of the plane ensured the call was a hoax. Inside Boston's locker room Sunday, players said it was a unique experience but that they were focused on the game against the Thunder.
"It was just really weird. Very unexpected," said Celtics big man Al Horford. "I'm glad that [it] was a false alarm."
Stevens said he wasn't sure what the best protocol was after receiving the information but trusted the in-flight staff. Most Celtics players and staff members didn't know of the threat until seeing the fire trucks and police presence that greeted the plane on the tarmac.
"I don't know what the right answer is there," Stevens said. "I think, at the end of the day, you trust the people in the cockpit who got the call and the flight attendants, who I believe made a suggestion just to keep it as is and go from there. I've never been through it, so I wasn't trained properly."