How good is Coach Maz? (Update: Interim Removed)

[Roy H.]

The no timeout when they're faltering thing has always bugged me.  I hear that he's trying to get them to work through adversity, but sometime you gotta stop the bleeding and talk about what's going wrong.  I think he's a decent enough motivator....

20/20 hindsight, but definitely would have liked to have seen them call a timeout and set up a play last night.

I understand the strategy when it's our starting lineup out there (or four starters and a top sub).  But, when you're talking about a unit that hasn't played together, I'm not sure what good letting them "learn" does.  It's definitely a frustration point.

[jpotter33]

The no timeout when they're faltering thing has always bugged me.  I hear that he's trying to get them to work through adversity, but sometime you gotta stop the bleeding and talk about what's going wrong.  I think he's a decent enough motivator....

20/20 hindsight, but definitely would have liked to have seen them call a timeout and set up a play last night.

I think his ridiculous time out philosophy is the clearest example of Joe’s subpar coaching and preparedness to be a current NBA coach, but it’s certainly not the only thing.

The consistent persistence with the awful drop coverage, his extreme reliance on the three in his offensive philosophy, and his seeming lack of go-to plays to get the team good looks and back in a rhythm are all other deficiencies that have been on display this year.

[slamtheking]

The no timeout when they're faltering thing has always bugged me.  I hear that he's trying to get them to work through adversity, but sometime you gotta stop the bleeding and talk about what's going wrong.  I think he's a decent enough motivator....

20/20 hindsight, but definitely would have liked to have seen them call a timeout and set up a play last night.

I think his ridiculous time out philosophy is the clearest example of Joe’s subpar coaching and preparedness to be a current NBA coach, but it’s certainly not the only thing.

The consistent persistence with the awful drop coverage, his extreme reliance on the three in his offensive philosophy, and his seeming lack of go-to plays to get the team good looks and back in a rhythm are all other deficiencies that have been on display this year.

all reasons I don't consider him to be a particularly good coach - at this time.  he would hopefully improve during his career but ideally not at the expense of a title for the C's.   This is primarily a young team that has shown it needs someone with some coaching experience to guide them through the season and get them performing at their best entering the playoffs.  an experience coach would also give them the best possible chance to win close games with good play calling and TO management throughout the game.  I just don't think Joe is that kind of coach.

[CelticsWhat35]

We need a coach that will do his job for 48 minutes and not decide to take the last 2 minutes off to teach the children a lesson.

I've yet to see this guy draw up a play or do more than chew gum. Losing to lesser teams is a 50/50 thing now.

The end of the Toronto game should concern everyone. Good coaches don't allow those situations to develop the way he did.

How on earth is Joe getting blamed for the two horrible passes Smart made in the Toronto game?  Smart is a veteran that should know better.  I’m sure there are plenty of things to critique Joe on.  That’s not one of them

[nebist]

Not an answer to the question, but timeout usage is about the 50th most important thing a coach does for a basketball team (that's being generous to timeouts), and it is always the #1 thing most fans look at. I never understood that.

[Goldstar88]

Well, he has a much better record with the team than Ime did this time last year. Seems like people forget that.

The counterargument to that is that Ime had to take over an underachieving team with bad habits, and he rebuilt it into a defensive monster with an elite point differential.  Mazzulla took over a team that was coming off a Finals run, without as much change being necessary.

It's interesting to compare Ime's squad to Joe's, even with last year's team getting off to a significantly worse start:

2022 Celts:  Off Rtg: 114.4 (7th of 30) Def Rtg: 106.9 (2nd of 30) Net Rtg: +7.5 (2nd of 30)

2023 Celts:  Off Rtg: 117.6 (3rd of 30) Def Rtg: 112.0 (8th of 30) Net Rtg: +5.7 (1st of 30)

C’s have had a lot more players missing time this year due to injury, sickness, personal reasons. I mean, Rob missed 2+ months and he’s the anchor of the defense. I also feel like the C’s have the ability to flip a switch come postseason and play elite defense. It’s not like they don’t know how, the efforts just not always there. It’s a long season and they don’t always get up for their opponents. 

[angryguy77]

We need a coach that will do his job for 48 minutes and not decide to take the last 2 minutes off to teach the children a lesson.

I've yet to see this guy draw up a play or do more than chew gum. Losing to lesser teams is a 50/50 thing now.

The end of the Toronto game should concern everyone. Good coaches don't allow those situations to develop the way he did.

How on earth is Joe getting blamed for the two horrible passes Smart made in the Toronto game?  Smart is a veteran that should know better.  I’m sure there are plenty of things to critique Joe on.  That’s not one of them

At the end, he watched PP get swarmed. Call a TO.

[angryguy77]

Not an answer to the question, but timeout usage is about the 50th most important thing a coach does for a basketball team (that's being generous to timeouts), and it is always the #1 thing most fans look at. I never understood that.

Calling a TO doesn't guarantee a win, but in spots it does give you an opportunity to get a win or call a better play.

The best coaches are those that are flexible and can adapt to the situation. They don't have this ride or die mentality. As a coach at this level, he needs to see and have a feel when a TO might be the best choice and when it is not. So far he's rigid and is forcing the philosophy at time that's making it harder to win games like yesterday.

[liam]

Not an answer to the question, but timeout usage is about the 50th most important thing a coach does for a basketball team (that's being generous to timeouts), and it is always the #1 thing most fans look at. I never understood that.

It's what they can see. He coached the team to the best record in the NBA so far. I don't think that's an accident. What was our record last year at this time with a very similar roster? It's a long year and there are always bad losses for every team.

[Roy H.]

Brian Robb's take on the timeout situation last night:  https://www.masslive.com/celtics/2023/01/joe-mazzulla-hurts-celtics-with-questionable-timeout-choices-in-loss-to-heat-brian-robb.html

[Goldstar88]

Well, he has a much better record with the team than Ime did this time last year. Seems like people forget that.

So you seriously think that Joe inherited a team similar to what Ime did the season before? The Celtics were the best team in the league last year after starting 18-21 and they carried it all of the way to the Finals. Comparing Ime's start to Joe's start is incredibly disingenuous. Bugs Bunny would have this team at 30+ wins.

I don't blame Joe, it's not his fault Ime was a complete moron. If Hardy was here, he would have had the job over Joe. It's not that he was never going to be a coach, but he was thrown into a situation that he probably wasn't ready for. He gets to coach the NBA Title favorites while Hardy went to a tanking situation. And somehow, someway Hardy has his team at .500 and in contention for the playoffs. They were supposed to contend for Wemby.

Edit: Roy beat me to the punch

Ime inherited a team that was making deep playoff runs almost every year. They made the conference finals 3 times in 4 years. Also, the Jazz did try to get Joe as well and the Celtics said no. Utah started the season hot with Hardy, but they have come back down to earth. There are 7 teams behind them by only a few games. They will be lucky to make the play in tournament.

[slamtheking]

Brian Robb's take on the timeout situation last night:  https://www.masslive.com/celtics/2023/01/joe-mazzulla-hurts-celtics-with-questionable-timeout-choices-in-loss-to-heat-brian-robb.html

it's a fair assessment.  doesn't say Joe screwed up by not calling the immediate TO (I disagree on that) but does take him to task for not taking one when seeing the team completely screw up the end of the game by walking the ball up, not getting into an offensive set immediately and not getting anything close to a cohesive play running during the entire final possession.

Tatum played good soldier by falling on his sword to take the blame but Joe gets most of the blame on this one as the one in charge.  Tatum bears some responsibility for walking it up and dribbling the air out of the ball but to be fair to him, he played heavy minutes in the past 2 nights and was looking a bit gassed.

[Neurotic Guy]

It’s easy for others but hard for me to assess the quality of an NBA head coach.  When it comes to in-game strategies, I never think that I know better than an NBA coach.  My resting assumption is that Joe knows more about players, plays, strategy, combinations, etc. than I’ll ever know. Partly that’s because he regularly “lives with” and practices with the players.  Partly it’s because he’s played the game and coached at a high level and I’ve done neither.

 But with that said, I don’t like that this team regresses (loose; sloppy; fancy) with a double-digit lead and tightens (lose the handle; desperation pass; play nervously) in close end of game situations.  Feels to me that these are coachable circumstances and that Joe isn’t changing things for the better in those contexts.

[ozgod]

We're really not going to know until the playoffs.

Until then, I have him as top 10.  Justified or not, this team has the best record in the NBA at the moment and has emerged from the Ime debacle without much detriment.   People can certainly nitpick his schemes and the decisions but, at the end of the day right now, this team has the best record in the NBA nearly 50 games in.

I have the same opinion. I don't think you can tell until you've seen his full body of work, including the playoffs. If we had asked the same question of Ime this time last year the Celtics were 24-24 and Ime would probably have been ranked in the bottom 10. In fact many were calling for him to be fired. Here's an example of some posts from that time period in late January:

Anyone else taking a break from watching?
Is our coach/front office better or worse than last year? (Hint: the majority answer to the poll was both were worse)
How much longer can this team endure this level of performance without imploding?
This team is unwatchable
Perk slams Ime in game

Obviously we are all creatures of the moment, and we're on a 2 game losing streak, and so far most of us have struggled with Joe Mazz's in game management, which is the part of his coaching that we see. We judge coaches by timeouts, substitutions, plays drawn up and by that metric he doesn't match up to many people's expectations of what a good coach should be. But we should also remember that a) we're halfway through the season and b) we are 35-14 after 49 games vs 24-24 after 48 games last season. This time last season a lot of people were advocating for Ime to be fired, just click on any of those links or do a search of the forum around January 2022. Here are a few examples:

"I love Perk’s frankness and insight. Anybody see Perk pre-game? He said Ime needs to be held accountable by Brad. Perk likened Ime to a parent who has lost control of his kids. “ You give them too much rope and they play with you all the time. He has to draw the line [with the players]. Uchoka is in way over his head."

"TBH, I feel like we’re stuck on the treadmill, so getting higher picks may be the only chance to improve/become a contender.  But judging how this is wearing on the fans, you can only imagine what’s it’s doing to the players."

"I can't do this anymore. I have seen them blow games all season long. This team is poorly constructed and they don't believe in each other.. Their body language shows it."

"A viable head coach might have a bigger impact!"

"The whole Tatum bringing up the ball was a disaster when Brad did it, it is still a disaster with Ime."

"Coach is certainly worse in my opinion. We’ve got a fairly substantial sample size to be able to say that with confidence. He just has no idea on the offensive side of things."

"They have decent talent. They just have a head coach who doesn’t know how to use that talent effectively, either short or long term, and he especially doesn’t have the coaching skills to get them to perform by holding them accountable."

This is not to embarrass anyone, at the time those comments were made the Cs were playing terrible and everyone thought Ime was a fail. You can only comment based on how you felt at the time, and those comments were 100% valid based on how the team was performing. The point I'm trying to make is that 4 months later everyone's opinions on the team and the coach completely turned around so let's not give up on Joe too soon. It's premature to write someone off before they've been given the same opportunity every coach we've had was given, which is to complete a season and see where he and the team end up.

Right now the evidence suggests he's more of a facilitator than a coach. He's got an excessively hands off approach. But I think his coaching philosophy is to empower the players to take responsibility rather than tell them what to do. Even if it costs them games, I suspect he's looking at the bigger picture and trying to prepare them to make decisions in the cauldron of the playoffs, so even if they make mistakes now the experience they gain is worth it to him. It could also be because he doesn't have the gravitas of someone like a Pop or a D'Antoni who has been in the league for decades, or even an Ime or a Juwan Howard who has been an NBA assistant for many years, and he's coming in coaching a team that made it to the NBA finals and was 2 games away from winning it all. I also suspect his in game management will change come playoff time - he'll never be a Pop type coach, I just don't think he's built that way - but in the playoffs when every win matters I doubt he would throw games away to "teach someone a lesson".

I'm inclined to give him a little bit of rope until his full body of work has been completed.

[MarcusSmartFanClub]

He’s approximately as good as Ime. This team didn’t lose the Finals because of some. They lost because our guys got tired and Steph Curry.