Question, I know some of the people who left were Ime Udoka's guys. But last offseason they added a bunch of assistant coaches and other assistants as well as JVG to aid Mazzulla and give him his own staff. Umm... are they actually guiding Mazzulla or getting in his ear about stuff? Because if not, what was the point? I thought they were supposed to theoretically help Mazzulla unless you're telling me Mazzulla doesn't listen to them or they are sort of "hands off". I mean, can't JVG or Cassell tell Mazzulla to draw up non-Tatum plays, or shoot less 3s, etc.?
I just think this organization has a reliance on the 3-ball and analytics and this existed even with Ime + Stevens. People hype up Ime a ton in 2022 and yes, they made the Finals. But it wasn't like they got there easily, they took their foot off the gas pedal a lot, blew pivotal games and then come Finals were also outcoached and exposed in certain areas (ex. drop coverage). And even that season I remember people truly wanted to fire Ime after a rough start to 2021-2022.
I think this is an interesting split between we're
actually observing versus what we perhaps
want to be observing.
You're making one presumption and two assumptions:
Presumption: That the team is going to play differently after JVG & the assistants come in
Assumption: That the team is going to rely less on '3-ball and analytics' because of JVG & the assistants.
Assumption: That JVG & the assistants are 'obviously' going to tell Mazz that he needs to draw up fewer Tatum plays and shoot fewer threes.
What I don't understand is why we are refusing to entertain the idea that JVG and the coaching staffs
are telling Mazz what they feel he needs to do with the team in order to maximise their chances of winning basketball games.
Many posters on the board have this tendency, and while it tends to run hand-in-hand with refusing to acknowledge that the offense is significantly different from what we had with Udoka, and (in more subtle ways, perhaps) different than last year, it also ignores the reality: we're winning a ton of games, so whatever the coaches
are doing is clearly working.
If I am JVG, why am I going to say things that are going to lead to the Celtics winning
fewer games? If I'm Sam Cassell, why am I going to say 'hey Jrue, back in my day, I used to get posted up by Mark Jackson he'd back me down for 15 seconds ' when the team is 59-16?