Let's talk about Joe...

[Roy H.]

At least with a healthy Rob Williams we could *always* hang our hats on defense and energy.

Any issues with this slight rewrite?

That’s certainly part of it, but it’s more than that. Joe simply doesn’t have the same focus on the defensive end as Ime. He doesn’t prioritize it as much.

And while I personally disagree with that approach, that would be fine if we had a *consistently dominant* offensive style and philosophy to fall back and rely on every night. But we don’t. Mazzulla ball consistently requires hitting a high clip of threes with no contingency. And even the excellent ball and player movement of his philosophy is sporadic and interestingly is connected to when we’re hitting threes. When we don’t hit, we fall into iso.

I’ll also say that Mazzulla ball makes the two big lineup less obvious, so among all these issues I don’t think pointing to Rob’s or overall heakth is wholly determinative of the struggles.

Possibly - lended credence by the fact that the C's had a defensive rating of 109.8 without Timelord last season and have a 113.8 rating without him this year per statmuse... but overall we're sitting at 112.3 on the season this year, which is good for fourth in the league.

In other words, whilst this is a drop off from last season (where we had a top two defense in the league) this doesn't scream 'massive downturn' to me.
We've essentially traded a top two defense and a top seven offense for a top three offense and a top four defense.

Now, if I were a pitchfork salesman, I'd be ordering extra stock. If I were an armchair salesman, I'd have every amateur quarterback and part-time sports psychologist in the Boston area on speed dial. As I'm neither, I still think it's much ado about a relatively meaningless cold streak.

I'm as reactionary to bad losses as anybody, and this stretch has had several.  But mostly, I look at segments of the season, to see where the team is going.

We're 9-9 since January 23.  Since that time, our offensive rating is 116.3, and our defensive rating is 113.8.

I don't have access to where we rank during that stretch, particularly because not every stats site agrees to the same method of calculating O-Rtg and D-Rtg.  But, for perspective, that DRtg would rank 20th in the NBA if it were sustained over a full season, tied with Denver.  The ORtg would drop us to the 8th spot, tied with the Jazz.

The talent is seemingly there to contend, but it's hard to get excited for a .500 team that has the Jazz offense and the Nuggets defense.  That's where we've been for 22% of the season, which seems like a fairly significant sample size.  When it's also the most recent sample, it makes me worry. 

So, is a team what it's record says it is, or is it what its record says it is *lately*?

Yeah it's an interesting question. With the Celtics, as folks have already said, reductivism wins: they almost always win when they shoot well and they mostly win when they don't.

You can usually use Statmuse for these long form questions, by the way. They query function has come a long way in the last 10 years since launch. For ex:
https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/what-team-has-the-best-ortg-since-january-23

https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/what-team-has-the-best-drtg-since-january-23

To save you clicks: it's 16/30 for ORtg and 10/30 for DRtg from Jan 23 onward. Not great. Mostly confirms the eye test on the offensive end - but I think people would be surprised to see that our defense is still in the top third of the league.

Interesting.  That also seems to confirm the eye test that defense in general has gotten worse league wide as the season goes on.  A 113.8 DRtg ranks top-10 right now, whereas based upon the season as a whole it would be 20th (according to BBR).  (Or, inversely, I guess offenses could have heated up, although that doesn't match the eye test regarding the NBA February and March malaise.)

[Kernewek]

If I had to spin a narrative, I'd say that defense and offense slacks in general after the new year but particularly through either side of the all star break for teams that are more or less set on making the playoffs or teams that are comfortable going for a lottery pick. Players on a contract year are going to be the exceptions to this, but easing off in February and March as you start to focus on the rapidly approaching post-season is going to be pretty hard to avoid for most guys.

This is part of the reason why teams will often play down to other teams, but the finish line of the season makes it pop more across the board in terms of energy and effort - especially if you've built yourself a pretty comfortable record by this point in the year - something the Celtics very clearly didn't do last season.

In other words, if the C's go .500 for the rest of the season, they'll still finish 53-29. This time last year, the C's were 39-27... and that's after hitting New Year's Eve just two games over .500 at 27-25.

[LilRip]

The losses bother me less. It’s how we’re losing them. The team can’t seem to hold on to a big lead, despite having the talent to build them.

And it isn’t that the C’s are just missing shots. The offense emphasizes ball movement, cutting and more ball movement, where everyone has the green light to take an open shot. This is evident at the start of games. But as the game gets tight, this generally disappears. And since deliberate X’s and O’s isn’t Joe’s strong point, the C’s just have a tough time getting a good look when they need one. Tatum can usually bail us out on pure talent but him being in a slump (or out) means that x factor is absent.

We’ll ultimately see come playoff time, but this team seems like it plays more like a regular season monster, instead of having a playstyle conducive to postseason action. Time will tell.

[ozgod]

Gary Washburn had an interview with Joe Mazz in the Globe today. Some snippets along with a link to the full story are below.

Mazzulla catapulted the Celtics to the NBA’s top record for most of the season, but has been presented with his first significant adversity as a head coach of late. The Celtics are 1-4 in the past five games with three consecutive losses in games they led by at least 14 points.

The criticism of Mazzulla is increasing.

Is he truly prepared to lead the Celtics to their first championship in 15 years? Is his inexperience, especially against veteran coaches, being exposed during these late-season matchups?

Is Mazzulla really the right man for this job?

He hears those questions. He withstands the criticism. He admits his faults, such as not playing Derrick White down the stretch in Sunday’s double-overtime loss to the New York Knicks. He calls timeouts more consistently. But he is also extremely confident in his abilities and philosophy, and is stubborn, perhaps to a fault.

What’s complicated about the situation is Mazzulla is just 34 and a first-time coach. First-time anythings make mistakes, they learn with experience, they are given grace. Mazzulla is not presented with such grace because the stakes are so high.

“No. 1, whether I coach for one year or 20 years, I’m still going to make mistakes in Year 20, so it’s not really whether I’m a first-time head coach,” Mazzulla said. “People have been coaching a long time, they get a pass for the mistakes that they make. And young guys don’t.

“I have to be a continuous learner, no matter how long I coach in this game, and like I said before, no one will put more pressure and expectations than I put on myself and our team and the guys put on themselves.”

“The coach for the Celtics, the No. 1 goal is to win and if you don’t do it, then that’s my fault,” Mazzulla said. “And that’s how you have to approach every day.”

So excuse Mazzulla if he approaches this job with seriousness and vigor, if he isn’t as chatty or amicable with the media as he could be. Mazzulla may deflect the pressure of being the Boston Celtics head coach, but he definitely feels it.

The Celtics are 45-21 and in second place in the East, and there are fans that want management to offer a reprieve and forgiveness to Udoka and bring him back. With every loss, every blown lead, the uncertainty builds and questions arise. Did the Celtics make the right decision? Is Mazzulla capable of coaching against some of the game’s elite in the postseason?

“I’m making some of the same mistakes and I’m not making some of them,” Mazzulla said when asked to assess his growth since October. “And I think you’re constantly going to grow. All coaches make two or three mistakes every game that you can go back and say, I wish we could do this and trying to learn through those and trying to control those.

“I feel like my identity is there. I feel like us and the team are connected as to what’s the most important thing, the mind-set that we need to have, and it’s just a matter of continuing to build those habits and that continuity in that.”

Mazzulla inherited an unfortunate situation when Udoka was suspended for an inappropriate relationship with a subordinate. And he has fueled the Celtics to be one of the elite teams in the NBA and earned the right to be a head coach in the All-Star Game.

It’s been a remarkable run, but it’s far from over. The adjustments Mazzulla makes over the next several weeks could determine whether this season was a success or whether the doubts will carry over to next season.

Full article https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/03/07/sports/celtics-joe-mazzulla-answers-questions-criticism-his-first-season-head-coach/

[Roy H.]

Serious question:  if we hired Samuel Jackson  to replace Joe and told him to play his Coach Carter role whenever around the team, would we be any worse?

[liam]

Serious question:  if we hired Denzel Washington to replace Joe and told him to play his Coach Carter role whenever around the team, would we be any worse?

Is Marcus Smart still on the team?

[jpotter33]

Serious question:  if we hired Denzel Washington to replace Joe and told him to play his Coach Carter role whenever around the team, would we be any worse?

No. But if we hired Samuel L. Jackson to coach, he definitely would. 

But seriously - a few good moments from him tonight, but yet another game where his entire philosophy just sinks the team, as well as his "8-ball rotations".

[Roy H.]

Serious question:  if we hired Denzel Washington to replace Joe and told him to play his Coach Carter role whenever around the team, would we be any worse?

No. But if we hired Samuel L. Jackson to coach, he definitely would. 

But seriously - a few good moments from him tonight, but yet another game where his entire philosophy just sinks the team, as well as his "8-ball rotations".

Ha.  You guys are fast.  I meant Jackson but you beat the edit.

But Denzel can improvise, between He Got Game and Remember the Titans.

[SCeltic34]

Earlier in the season when we were playing better basketball, some observant people here noticed that Joe actually wasn't doing as great a job as it seemed.  After all, if you looked on paper, we were doing great - good offensive numbers and the best record in the NBA.  People scoffed at the suggestion that Joe was mismanaging game situations.

Now that the 3's aren't falling at the same unsustainable rate I'm sure that our problems are much easier to see.  Joe's coaching prowess has always been a question mark, and the doubt has only grown larger as the season has progressed.  I have no idea how a roster with this much talent can look so bad at times.  Joe isn't getting it done, plain and simple.  I'm sure there's less scoffing now.

[jpotter33]

Earlier in the season when we were playing better basketball, some observant people here noticed that Joe actually wasn't doing as great a job as it seemed.  After all, if you looked on paper, we were doing great - good offensive numbers and the best record in the NBA.  People scoffed at the suggestion that Joe was mismanaging game situations.

Now that the 3's aren't falling at the same unsustainable rate I'm sure that our problems are much easier to see.  Joe's coaching prowess has always been a question mark, and the doubt has only grown larger as the season has progressed.  I have no idea how a roster with this much talent can look so bad at times.  Joe isn't getting it done, plain and simple.  I'm sure there's less scoffing now.

The main supporters are clearly not as vocal in their support of him now, that's for sure.

But I think the issue has grown even more since the beginning of the season. For the most part we still played with energy and intensity in the beginning of the season, which is probably due to us making shots.

Now? It's a coin flip if we get consistent energy from these guys each night. This simply didn't happen with Ime. Ime earned their respect and trust by holding them and himself accountable. Joe is nothing but a player's coach, and now not only is he not meeting expectations with his in-game management and overall philosophy he's implementing, he's also not able to keep these guys engaged and accountable consistently and doesn't seem to have earned their respect.

I don't see how you bring him back if we continue on this trajectory and flame out in the playoffs. Perhaps not fair to ask this of a first year coach with such little high-level coaching experience, but he has not business coaching the Boston Celtics right now and we don't have time for him to figure it out.

[keevsnick]

At least with a healthy Rob Williams we could *always* hang our hats on defense and energy.

Any issues with this slight rewrite?

That’s certainly part of it, but it’s more than that. Joe simply doesn’t have the same focus on the defensive end as Ime. He doesn’t prioritize it as much.

And while I personally disagree with that approach, that would be fine if we had a *consistently dominant* offensive style and philosophy to fall back and rely on every night. But we don’t. Mazzulla ball consistently requires hitting a high clip of threes with no contingency. And even the excellent ball and player movement of his philosophy is sporadic and interestingly is connected to when we’re hitting threes. When we don’t hit, we fall into iso.

I’ll also say that Mazzulla ball makes the two big lineup less obvious, so among all these issues I don’t think pointing to Rob’s or overall heakth is wholly determinative of the struggles.

Possibly - lended credence by the fact that the C's had a defensive rating of 109.8 without Timelord last season and have a 113.8 rating without him this year per statmuse... but overall we're sitting at 112.3 on the season this year, which is good for fourth in the league.

In other words, whilst this is a drop off from last season (where we had a top two defense in the league) this doesn't scream 'massive downturn' to me.
We've essentially traded a top two defense and a top seven offense for a top three offense and a top four defense.

Now, if I were a pitchfork salesman, I'd be ordering extra stock. If I were an armchair salesman, I'd have every amateur quarterback and part-time sports psychologist in the Boston area on speed dial. As I'm neither, I still think it's much ado about a relatively meaningless cold streak.

I'm as reactionary to bad losses as anybody, and this stretch has had several.  But mostly, I look at segments of the season, to see where the team is going.

We're 9-9 since January 23.  Since that time, our offensive rating is 116.3, and our defensive rating is 113.8.

I don't have access to where we rank during that stretch, particularly because not every stats site agrees to the same method of calculating O-Rtg and D-Rtg.  But, for perspective, that DRtg would rank 20th in the NBA if it were sustained over a full season, tied with Denver.  The ORtg would drop us to the 8th spot, tied with the Jazz.

The talent is seemingly there to contend, but it's hard to get excited for a .500 team that has the Jazz offense and the Nuggets defense.  That's where we've been for 22% of the season, which seems like a fairly significant sample size.  When it's also the most recent sample, it makes me worry. 

So, is a team what it's record says it is, or is it what its record says it is *lately*?

Yeah it's an interesting question. With the Celtics, as folks have already said, reductivism wins: they almost always win when they shoot well and they mostly win when they don't.

You can usually use Statmuse for these long form questions, by the way. They query function has come a long way in the last 10 years since launch. For ex:
https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/what-team-has-the-best-ortg-since-january-23

https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/what-team-has-the-best-drtg-since-january-23

To save you clicks: it's 16/30 for ORtg and 10/30 for DRtg from Jan 23 onward. Not great. Mostly confirms the eye test on the offensive end - but I think people would be surprised to see that our defense is still in the top third of the league.

Interesting.  That also seems to confirm the eye test that defense in general has gotten worse league wide as the season goes on.  A 113.8 DRtg ranks top-10 right now, whereas based upon the season as a whole it would be 20th (according to BBR).  (Or, inversely, I guess offenses could have heated up, although that doesn't match the eye test regarding the NBA February and March malaise.)

If I remember correctly offensive rating league wide does tend to go up as the season progresses, at least historically.

[tenn_smoothie]

Hearing more clamoring of late for a desire to have Ime back.
I don't know if that's even possible anymore in terms of policy, protocol, staff contracts, etc.

Yes, I would love a return to the effort and elite defense of last year's team. However, keep in mind that it was Ime's offense (or lack of an offense) that lost the finals. We became so predictable and stagnant that the whole thing ground to a halt with exhausted players trying to create something from nothing. Ball screens, isolations and dribble-drives were it. Add in a smart defensive team in Golden State and there you have the 3-game meltdown that ended the season.

Gotta have both. I love being a defense-first team, but you have to have some movement and creativity on offense to win the title. Perfect example was Garnett's team. They played beautiful team defense that was a pleasure to watch. Best in the league and one of the best all-time according to many knowledgeable people. And they had plenty of offensive firepower to go with it. Should have won 3. Anyway ............

To the present. Not that ownership would do it, but I would welcome a change at the top of the franchise..
Bring in experienced pro guys. NBA guys at GM and head coach. The Celtics deserve better than this amateur show we have now.
It is so frustrating to watch the talent of this group being wasted on the incompetency beyond the players control.