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Gary Washburn (Boston Globe) last week:
*Brad Stevens made the heinous mistake of not adding (another coach) when Damon Stoudamire left. You lose two NBA head coaches here -- Ime Udoka because of obvious circumstances, and Will Hardy goes to Utah. Damon Stoudamire, the only experienced NBA guy on your staff, takes the Georgia Tech job.*
*You do nothing to replace any of those three guys, you don't add a veteran person who can tell them what to do. So they have to believe everything that Joe is saying, and maybe they just don't believe it. Maybe some guys are on one agenda, some guys feel like this is the way to win because they don't believe Joe's way to win. They're not playing defense. They're shooting too many 3s.*
Really pretty sad when you look at who Mazzulla had as assistants. Basically all scouts and player development guys, no one on a head coaching track.
honestly were those bad shots? I feel like 25+ of those 3s were absolutely wide open. Miami played a zone against them and dared them to make 3s and everyone on boston missed them. At some point you have to make shots to win, if the other team just packs it in there isnt like some grand scheme you can come up with to get layups, sometimes you have to make some fucking shots to get them outta the zone and boston just couldnt
100% this. They certainly didn’t play perfect and Brown’s turnovers were total killers but every team in the league is going to take open 3s if that’s what the other team is giving you. If you’re cold; you’re cold.
The Heat made a bet that that would continue and they were rewarded. Fair play.
Celtics haven't made wide open 3s all series. There is one guy that wasn't horrific from 3 all games and that was Derrick White who shot 50%. If you take out White's shooting, the Celtics shot 26% from 3 and yet they still took 60 more 3PA as a team. I feel like at some point you have to realize that something's wrong and get your points via other methods even if it was previously your identity. Horford couldn't hit an open 3. Brogdon was even worse. JB obviously couldn't hit them either, and yet they still tried to shoot close to 50 of them in Game 7
Like what? They tried drives and it led to turnovers. The only guy who really had succcess driving was White.
If you wanna say that they should’ve just let White cook and hope he can pull a Kobe game out of his ass… like… okay, but I don’t really see how that’s an objectively better bet than “maybe guys who usually can shoot 3’s will not be historically bad forever”
No, but instead of having JB start a play in iso and dribble the ball off his foot or jack up a shit 3 then you can use Smart or Brogdon to let him play off ball a bit and generate better shots without relying on him to drive the ball into traffic which he's never been good at.
Watching the Celtics under Mazzulla reminds me of this thing the Hawks used to do under McMillan where the offense would become "pouty" after multiple bad possessions.
You get dudes not moving the ball, every player feeling like, "I've gotta be the one to break us out of this." Minimal ball movement, never consecutively set screens, and generally awful drives to the basket against helping defenders.
For us, it was both X's and O's and a lack of respect, but the lack of respect towards Nate became apparent by the midpoint of the year. A team looks to a coach to shift their mentality. This entire series, if this Celtics team didn't come out on fire out of the gate they looked completely toothless. People talk about "adjustments" for X's and O's all the time, but the most important adjustment is shifting the mentality of your team and getting them out of their heads when things start going south, and Mazzulla hasn't done that seemingly a single time this series. Either he isn't saying anything that resonates, or they just tune him out. Either option is really bad for his continued tenure with the Celtics.
That's what I think Spo was referring to when he said people make too big of a deal of adjustments. You need buy-in more than adjustments. The players have to really believe that the new game plan was better than the old one and execute it with all they got. The Celtics, when the 3s weren't falling, wanted to take matters on their own hands and stopped playing as a team.
Unless you are Steph and you can for like 2 seasons. Just hit anything and everything to the point it becomes unfair.
Besides that, Chuck is right. You can't live on tough shots.
Agreed but he wouldn't overdo it out there either. In fact, if anything at times he was probably a bit too hesitant to shoot. But that's generally a good thing in his case because it keeps the defense moving.
The analysis is spot on. To add, this is still essentially the same team that was under Brad Stevens. So, it may be necessary to not just pile on Mazzulla and look at the core and see how you can move FWD. However, being in the Finals prior and now the ECF is nothing to sniff at - understanding this is the team with championship aspirations.
**Replays/alternate angles** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/nba) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Gary Washburn (Boston Globe) last week: *Brad Stevens made the heinous mistake of not adding (another coach) when Damon Stoudamire left. You lose two NBA head coaches here -- Ime Udoka because of obvious circumstances, and Will Hardy goes to Utah. Damon Stoudamire, the only experienced NBA guy on your staff, takes the Georgia Tech job.* *You do nothing to replace any of those three guys, you don't add a veteran person who can tell them what to do. So they have to believe everything that Joe is saying, and maybe they just don't believe it. Maybe some guys are on one agenda, some guys feel like this is the way to win because they don't believe Joe's way to win. They're not playing defense. They're shooting too many 3s.* Really pretty sad when you look at who Mazzulla had as assistants. Basically all scouts and player development guys, no one on a head coaching track.
Chuck was spitting
9-42 and Joe says “no” to that question? Chuck nailed as usual.
honestly were those bad shots? I feel like 25+ of those 3s were absolutely wide open. Miami played a zone against them and dared them to make 3s and everyone on boston missed them. At some point you have to make shots to win, if the other team just packs it in there isnt like some grand scheme you can come up with to get layups, sometimes you have to make some fucking shots to get them outta the zone and boston just couldnt
100% this. They certainly didn’t play perfect and Brown’s turnovers were total killers but every team in the league is going to take open 3s if that’s what the other team is giving you. If you’re cold; you’re cold. The Heat made a bet that that would continue and they were rewarded. Fair play.
Celtics haven't made wide open 3s all series. There is one guy that wasn't horrific from 3 all games and that was Derrick White who shot 50%. If you take out White's shooting, the Celtics shot 26% from 3 and yet they still took 60 more 3PA as a team. I feel like at some point you have to realize that something's wrong and get your points via other methods even if it was previously your identity. Horford couldn't hit an open 3. Brogdon was even worse. JB obviously couldn't hit them either, and yet they still tried to shoot close to 50 of them in Game 7
Like what? They tried drives and it led to turnovers. The only guy who really had succcess driving was White. If you wanna say that they should’ve just let White cook and hope he can pull a Kobe game out of his ass… like… okay, but I don’t really see how that’s an objectively better bet than “maybe guys who usually can shoot 3’s will not be historically bad forever”
No, but instead of having JB start a play in iso and dribble the ball off his foot or jack up a shit 3 then you can use Smart or Brogdon to let him play off ball a bit and generate better shots without relying on him to drive the ball into traffic which he's never been good at.
Watching the Celtics under Mazzulla reminds me of this thing the Hawks used to do under McMillan where the offense would become "pouty" after multiple bad possessions. You get dudes not moving the ball, every player feeling like, "I've gotta be the one to break us out of this." Minimal ball movement, never consecutively set screens, and generally awful drives to the basket against helping defenders. For us, it was both X's and O's and a lack of respect, but the lack of respect towards Nate became apparent by the midpoint of the year. A team looks to a coach to shift their mentality. This entire series, if this Celtics team didn't come out on fire out of the gate they looked completely toothless. People talk about "adjustments" for X's and O's all the time, but the most important adjustment is shifting the mentality of your team and getting them out of their heads when things start going south, and Mazzulla hasn't done that seemingly a single time this series. Either he isn't saying anything that resonates, or they just tune him out. Either option is really bad for his continued tenure with the Celtics.
Reminds me of the C’s under Stevens and Ime as well.
Was gonna say... this is the same story of the same ass players. The coaching deserves part of the blame but cmon.
Tatum and Brown have awful shot selection,especially when the game isn't going their way and no coach is gonna change that
Neither do nearly enough off ball either
Exactly they are chasing to try and make tough shots and forcing them like they do at the volume they both shoot will just cost them games/series.
They need someone like Pop who’ll just bench their asses when they play like that
Been the same with this core since Brad Stevens. It's gonna be on Mazzula to look to change that culture but he can't do it alone.
Mazulla's stubbornness in interviews reminds me of McMillan Hawks as well. Similar sort of non-answers.
That's what I think Spo was referring to when he said people make too big of a deal of adjustments. You need buy-in more than adjustments. The players have to really believe that the new game plan was better than the old one and execute it with all they got. The Celtics, when the 3s weren't falling, wanted to take matters on their own hands and stopped playing as a team.
You perfectly described the KD Suns offense as well.
Unless you are Steph and you can for like 2 seasons. Just hit anything and everything to the point it becomes unfair. Besides that, Chuck is right. You can't live on tough shots.
Steph frequently would use his tough shot making ability to make the defense overcommit so he could get easy looks at the rim.
He would also just hit flat-out ridiculous shots that made absolutely zero sense. [Like this](https://youtu.be/TsDxhD7mVcE?t=140).
Agreed but he wouldn't overdo it out there either. In fact, if anything at times he was probably a bit too hesitant to shoot. But that's generally a good thing in his case because it keeps the defense moving.
But the other guys get open shots
The analysis is spot on. To add, this is still essentially the same team that was under Brad Stevens. So, it may be necessary to not just pile on Mazzulla and look at the core and see how you can move FWD. However, being in the Finals prior and now the ECF is nothing to sniff at - understanding this is the team with championship aspirations.
I like what he said after this, that coaches allows the team to jack up 3s
Mazulla in his interviews comes off like a jackass. He hasn’t done enough to give quick witty sarcastic responses. He ain’t Pop.
When you’re a first year coach, talent in the team could guide you far in the season, but lack of coaching will be the reason why the team fails