It is pretty safe to say that Boston Celtics head coach Brad Stevens is a pretty big fan of Cleveland Cavaliers head coach Ty Lue. The two have gone head-to-head in the postseason in each of the past couple of years, and Stevens has walked away from all of their interactions together impressed with Lue.

"Every interaction I've had with him has been just great," Stevens said of Lue, via cleveland.com. "I think he does a really, really good job. Always puts guys in a great position to have success. I think he's outstanding... I thought they've always done a great job of adjusting on the fly, they've always done a good job of using all their pieces to put us in position where we had real issues."

Though LeBron James gets a lot of credit for the Cavaliers' success over recent seasons - and rightfully so - Stevens thinks that Lue deserves his fair share of credit as well.

"Ty did a great job coaching that team," Stevens said of the LeBron-led Cavs. "I think he's really good. I think if you ask any of the players there and any of the people that coached against him, they know."

For what it's worth, Stevens is appreciative of the opportunity to learn from all of the coaches across the league's landscape, Lue included.

"I thought it was a lot really good decisions by them and there are 29 really great coaches that I get to steal from all the time and I appreciate that about this league," Stevens said. "Ty is one of them."

Lue will truly have an opportunity to show just how well he can coach this season, as he enters into his first year as a head coach without the benefit of having LeBron on the roster, and while he knows it will be difficult, he's also excited about the opportunity.

“Of course I would love to have LeBron James, but now that he’s gone it’s going to be a new challenge,” Lue said of coaching the LeBron-less Cavs, via the Boston Globe. “I think me and my coaching staff, we’re up for it. It’s going to be different, a lot of young guys that we can try to teach and mold them how you want them to be.

“I think when LeBron came back [from Miami] and we traded for Kevin Love, we didn’t have any draft picks — all veteran guys who could play now and understand how to play and how to win and what it took. Now, having made the trades we made during the season and acquiring some young talent through the draft, it will be a different challenge for us. I’m already excited about it.”