Fire Joe! ... or critique Joe ... or defend Joe... or worry about Joe's coaching

[SHAQATTACK]

https://twitter.com/LegionHoops/status/1790417931433902244

REPORT: JJ Redick, James Borrego and Sam Cassell have “emerged” as the top head coaching targets for the Lakers.

(via @ShamsCharania, @jovanbuha)

All the work we did to surround our head coach with top assistant coaching talent may be undone after a single season. Really hope we don’t lose both Lee and Cassell this summer.

Make him Laker Joe and keep the other two.

[gift]

Is Doc available?

Yeah, if we’re gonna fire a coach, we better have another lined up that we want to fire.

i don't know who you have in mind, but his substitution patterns are the single thing holding the team back.

It’s a joke….Everyone wants to fire Doc and he often gets fired. Celtics fans are continually blaming the coach for all failures and want him fired. Therefore Doc would be a good hire because we can universally get behind a “Fire Doc” thread, again.

i was joking that the next coach is already killing us with his substitutions.

[mobilija]

Is Doc available?

Yeah, if we’re gonna fire a coach, we better have another lined up that we want to fire.

i don't know who you have in mind, but his substitution patterns are the single thing holding the team back.

It’s a joke….Everyone wants to fire Doc and he often gets fired. Celtics fans are continually blaming the coach for all failures and want him fired. Therefore Doc would be a good hire because we can universally get behind a “Fire Doc” thread, again.

i was joking that the next coach is already killing us with his substitutions.

We probably shouldn’t go to any parties together

[ozgod]

JB mentioned something in his interview that I think Joe, for all the criticism he receives about tactical stuff, deserves some credit for. He's managed to get this team of high paid, high output, high ego stars to all be unselfish and buy in to a shared vision of sacrifice. Not easy to do.

The Celtics’ unselfishness stood out to Cavaliers coach J.B. Bickerstaff, who noted that they emphasize the empowerment of all their players, not just Brown and Tatum.

“They have really talented players throughout their lineup,” Bickerstaff said before Game 2. “But they all understand their role and they all play their role in a way that’s just going to help them win. As you sit back and watch the film and study them, you don’t see guys stepping outside of who they are in a way that’s going to impact other people.

“They don’t mind a Derrick White, for example, going off. If he’s going off, they allow him to do his thing and they feed him the ball and put him in a position to be successful and the other guys become great decoys.

“So I think you watch them and it doesn’t appear — again, from the outside — that it’s about me at all. It’s about winning and it’s about winning consistently.”

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/05/16/sports/celtics-cavaliers-playoffs/

Joe, with all his new age management technobabble about intentionality etc, might be a better man manager than he is a game manager. BUT...he will still be fired following our next loss 

[Vermont Green]

Buy in or credibility with the players or whatever you want to call it is a key attribute towards coaching success.  It is a very difficult thing to quantify or measure.  You have to decide by watching if a team is listening to the coach or not.  Even good coaches usually get tuned out after a period of time.  It is very rare to be like Popovich, to be a long term coach of a team in the NBA.  This is what I think Bickerstaff was getting at.

Right now, it is my observation that the team has bought into what Mazzulla is preaching, that is clear, just as Bickerstaff is saying.  To me, that is the most important thing.  I am not that worried about rotations or time outs.  For example, to me, playing Kornet or Tillman is inconsequential, easy for any fan to second-guess.

I think the team still dribbles too much and does not have enough off the ball movement.  That is at least partly a coaching issue, head coach and assistant coaches.  But it is not something a team implements overnight.  It takes time, more than 1 season with a core team.  I don't know how much of this is Mazzulla not knowing or the team not having learned yet.

[smokeablount]

Is Doc available?

Yeah, if we’re gonna fire a coach, we better have another lined up that we want to fire.

i don't know who you have in mind, but his substitution patterns are the single thing holding the team back.

It’s a joke….Everyone wants to fire Doc and he often gets fired. Celtics fans are continually blaming the coach for all failures and want him fired. Therefore Doc would be a good hire because we can universally get behind a “Fire Doc” thread, again.

I got it. It was clever. You didn’t deserve to have to explain it with a paragraph lol

[smokeablount]

Is Doc available?

Yeah, if we’re gonna fire a coach, we better have another lined up that we want to fire.

i don't know who you have in mind, but his substitution patterns are the single thing holding the team back.

It’s a joke….Everyone wants to fire Doc and he often gets fired. Celtics fans are continually blaming the coach for all failures and want him fired. Therefore Doc would be a good hire because we can universally get behind a “Fire Doc” thread, again.

i was joking that the next coach is already killing us with his substitutions.

We probably shouldn’t go to any parties together

Oh, plot twist…

[tenn_smoothie]

I think the team still dribbles too much and does not have enough off the ball movement.  That is at least partly a coaching issue, head coach and assistant coaches.  But it is not something a team implements overnight.  It takes time, more than 1 season with a core team.  I don't know how much of this is Mazzulla not knowing or the team not having learned yet.

Good Lord, It's not that complicated. The ball moves pretty well until it hits the hands of Tatum or Brown. Then it stops.
These two have now had several seasons to learn how to move without the ball. They are dumb basketball players.

The off-ball movement is a weird one to me. Do you remember Joe talking about he and the other assistants spending the summer after the finals loss to Golden State studying offenses from around the league, looking for schemes to implement into the Celtics offense due to 4th quarter offense stagnation being a big reason why we lost that series. Then Udoka is suspended by the team, Joe is appointed interim and he implements these strategies himself. For the first part of the 2023 season, the Celts offense was beautiful. There was movement and off-ball screening all over the half-court and the offense was setting efficiency records.

Then it all stopped and we deteriorated back into too many iso-fadeaway jumpers again .......... and I will never understand what happened.

[Donoghus]

I think the team still dribbles too much and does not have enough off the ball movement.  That is at least partly a coaching issue, head coach and assistant coaches.  But it is not something a team implements overnight.  It takes time, more than 1 season with a core team.  I don't know how much of this is Mazzulla not knowing or the team not having learned yet.

Good Lord, It's not that complicated. The ball moves pretty well until it hits the hands of Tatum or Brown. Then it stops.
These two have now had several seasons to learn how to move without the ball. They are dumb basketball players.

The off-ball movement is a weird one to me. Do you remember Joe talking about he and the other assistants spending the summer after the finals loss to Golden State studying offenses from around the league, looking for schemes to implement into the Celtics offense due to 4th quarter offense stagnation being a big reason why we lost that series. Then Udoka is suspended by the team, Joe is appointed interim and he implements these strategies himself. For the first part of the 2023 season, the Celts offense was beautiful. There was movement and off-ball screening all over the half-court and the offense was setting efficiency records.

Then it all stopped and we deteriorated back into too many iso-fadeaway jumpers again .......... and I will never understand what happened.

So is that on the players or is that on the coach?

To me, it’s on the players. We’ve seen it from Brad to Ime and now to Joe. It’s probably the most frustrating thing about this core and it’s been going on for years now.

[tenn_smoothie]

I think the team still dribbles too much and does not have enough off the ball movement.  That is at least partly a coaching issue, head coach and assistant coaches.  But it is not something a team implements overnight.  It takes time, more than 1 season with a core team.  I don't know how much of this is Mazzulla not knowing or the team not having learned yet.

Good Lord, It's not that complicated. The ball moves pretty well until it hits the hands of Tatum or Brown. Then it stops.
These two have now had several seasons to learn how to move without the ball. They are dumb basketball players.

The off-ball movement is a weird one to me. Do you remember Joe talking about he and the other assistants spending the summer after the finals loss to Golden State studying offenses from around the league, looking for schemes to implement into the Celtics offense due to 4th quarter offense stagnation being a big reason why we lost that series. Then Udoka is suspended by the team, Joe is appointed interim and he implements these strategies himself. For the first part of the 2023 season, the Celts offense was beautiful. There was movement and off-ball screening all over the half-court and the offense was setting efficiency records.

Then it all stopped and we deteriorated back into too many iso-fadeaway jumpers again .......... and I will never understand what happened.

So is that on the players or is that on the coach?

To me, it’s on the players. We’ve seen it from Brad to Ime and now to Joe. It’s probably the most frustrating thing about this core and it’s been going on for years now.

It's on both.

Tatum and Brown are apparently too dumb to figure out that holding the ball and then going into dribble, dribble, dribble, step-back jump shot mode ultimately leads to team failure. But we are so talented that we win in spite of this deficiency - until we get in the later playoff rounds against better competition who execute defensive strategies that expose us.

The Celtics need a head coach who will correct this and teach the J's to play differently and to get that half-court offense moving. Brad brought in this over-emphasis on a small-ball, 3-point heavy scheme to begin with and Ime's stagnant offense cost us the title in '22 vs Golden State. Joe, after a great start last season has inexplicably allowed his offense to return to the one-dimensional, isolation heavy style that I believe is our achilles heel.

How many times have we heard media members, other coaches in the league, former players who are now commentators and even fans talk about how unbeatable Boston would be if they played a more creative, motion-heavy style of offense ? The whole world seems to see it and understand our offensive execution issues - how do the Celtics' players, coaching staff and the GM not comprehend them ? It's mind-boggling to me.

[green_bballers13]

Ah, so Joe is dumb, as is JB and Tatum?

[Vermont Green]

I think the team still dribbles too much and does not have enough off the ball movement.  That is at least partly a coaching issue, head coach and assistant coaches.  But it is not something a team implements overnight.  It takes time, more than 1 season with a core team.  I don't know how much of this is Mazzulla not knowing or the team not having learned yet.

Good Lord, It's not that complicated. The ball moves pretty well until it hits the hands of Tatum or Brown. Then it stops.
These two have now had several seasons to learn how to move without the ball. They are dumb basketball players.

The off-ball movement is a weird one to me. Do you remember Joe talking about he and the other assistants spending the summer after the finals loss to Golden State studying offenses from around the league, looking for schemes to implement into the Celtics offense due to 4th quarter offense stagnation being a big reason why we lost that series. Then Udoka is suspended by the team, Joe is appointed interim and he implements these strategies himself. For the first part of the 2023 season, the Celts offense was beautiful. There was movement and off-ball screening all over the half-court and the offense was setting efficiency records.

Then it all stopped and we deteriorated back into too many iso-fadeaway jumpers again .......... and I will never understand what happened.

I think it is more nuanced than you are implying.  There is more to running an NBA offense against an NBA defense than just moving the ball.  All 5 players have to get it.

I don't disagree that at times, currently and in the past, individual players try to do too much on their own.  But things slow down at points in the game, especially in the playoffs.  It isn't always the fault of the guy with the ball.  If everyone else is just standing around watching, what is the guy with the ball supposed to do?  If the defense comes with a double (for example), everyone on the team needs to react, not just the guy with the ball.  The guy with the ball needs to know what the guys without the ball are going to do.  Everyone has to read the play, not just the guy with the ball.

That is the part that takes time, that takes a whole unit playing together.  These reads and reactions need to be second nature so that they happen at the speed of the NBA game.  One guy can hold the ball and break this, but one guy can't make the whole thing happen.

[bdm860]

Something about this thread (that didn't happen with any Fire Doc or Fire Stevens threads), is that it makes me more aware of other coaches around the league.  Like now I notice every game where a team doesn't call a timeout or their best player ISOs for the win/tie at the end of a close game (and it happens around the league a lot, though to be fair I don't know if other teams are doing it with the same frequency).  I commented here on Nurse several pages back (he didn't look like a good coach to me in the PHI/NYK series, only able to win if Embiid or Maxey set a career high), but now I'm looking at Mike Malone and thinking what if that was Joe.

It's not that Denver is tied 3-3 vs Wolves, but how they've looked in their 3 losses.  Losing the first 2 at home and having 2 blow out losses.  And this is all while the Wolves are partially down a head coach (due to Finch's knee injury a lot of coaching duties have been given to Nori). The struggles against the Wolves are now making me think back on the Lakers series.  Despite winning that series 4-1 it was probably closer than it should have been: they lost the 1st half of every game, and they only won 1 4Q.  I was thinking the Lakers made a valiant effort to keep most games close, but maybe it was less Lakers playing well and more Nuggets playing poorly.  Is this all on the players or Mike Malone?  If they get past the Wolves though, all will probably be forgotten/forgiven.


Then the other day on Reddit, on a post about Jason Kidd getting an extension, a Mavs fan said he didn't know how to feel as most of the fan base wanted Kidd gone, a Celtics fan replied that most fan bases don't know anything about coaching (probably a Joe supporter, ha), and then a Bulls fan gave a description that made me think he either hangs out here or we're just like every other fan base with the same coaching complaints:

https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/1clhoxp/haynes_dallas_mavericks_announced_a_contract/l2tv54t/?context=10000

Fanbase coaching discourse is just saying some combination of:

    Adjustments
    Rotations
    Our 9th man should be playing starter minutes
    Why are we going iso in the clutch?
    Why is the opposing team shooting 55% from 3 this half?

(For the record, I wouldn't be happy if the C's hired Kidd as coach, he's never looked like a good coach to me, but I would probably be enthusiastic about a Malone hiring).