Let's talk about Joe...

[ozgod]

Jay King: Joe Mazzulla said he made a mistake not playing Derrick White late in last night’s game.
– via Twitter ByJayKing

Well at least he admitted it 

[Phantom255x]

Jay King: Joe Mazzulla said he made a mistake not playing Derrick White late in last night’s game.
– via Twitter ByJayKing

It's nice to see some accountability

[Roy H.]

Jay King: Joe Mazzulla said he made a mistake not playing Derrick White late in last night’s game.
– via Twitter ByJayKing

It's nice to see some accountability

He’s only accountable if he changes.

[Phantom255x]

Jay King: Joe Mazzulla said he made a mistake not playing Derrick White late in last night’s game.
– via Twitter ByJayKing

It's nice to see some accountability

He’s only accountable if he changes.

Yeah true

[jpotter33]

Jay King: Joe Mazzulla said he made a mistake not playing Derrick White late in last night’s game.
– via Twitter ByJayKing

It's nice to see some accountability

He’s only accountable if he changes.

Exactly. This is literally the fourth or fifth time this year he's admitted of some sort of end of game error - whether it be play calling, timeout calling, rotations, etc. Yet, he continues to do the same thing. That's not accountability. Learn from those errors if you're admitting fault.

[radiohead]

Jay King: Joe Mazzulla said he made a mistake not playing Derrick White late in last night’s game.
– via Twitter ByJayKing

It's nice to see some accountability

He’s only accountable if he changes.

Hopefully that’s just part of growing pains. Can’t have those excuses come the playoffs.

[Indocelts]

Jay King: Joe Mazzulla said he made a mistake not playing Derrick White late in last night’s game.
– via Twitter ByJayKing

It's nice to see some accountability

He’s only accountable if he changes.

Exactly. This is literally the fourth or fifth time this year he's admitted of some sort of end of game error - whether it be play calling, timeout calling, rotations, etc. Yet, he continues to do the same thing. That's not accountability. Learn from those errors if you're admitting fault.

Joe is still learning how to admit his mistake. To change and act on it is another phase of his life. 😁

[jpotter33]

Update after tonight.

Pros - much, much, much better timeout management from him tonight. Joe used these masterfully for the most part, and he curbed several Cavs runs throughout the game with appropriate timeout calls. Good on him.

Negatives - Joe continued to be absolutely absent in the OT period and down the stretch. He didn't put the players in positions to succeed and expected them to iso and do it all themselves, despite the SEGABABA and multiple overtimes. Another highly disappointing end of game failure from him.

[Phantom255x]

He did better today

Truth be told though I kind of agree with others, at some point the players actually have to execute and show up too. Otherwise we’d be nitpicking every single coach including guys like Spoelstra and Pop. No one is gonna ever be perfect

They literally had a chance to win late if Grant makes 1 FT. He missed both. That’s not on Mazz

There’s something to also be said about effort and at times it didn’t seem like we showed any when trying to grab rebounds late

[ozgod]

He did better today

Truth be told though I kind of agree with others, at some point the players actually have to execute and show up too. Otherwise we’d be nitpicking every single coach including guys like Spoelstra and Pop. No one is gonna ever be perfect

They literally had a chance to win late if Grant makes 1 FT. He missed both. That’s not on Mazz

There’s something to also be said about effort and at times it didn’t seem like we showed any when trying to grab rebounds late

Grant got iced by Spida talking mess in his ear 

[gouki88]

He did better today

Truth be told though I kind of agree with others, at some point the players actually have to execute and show up too. Otherwise we’d be nitpicking every single coach including guys like Spoelstra and Pop. No one is gonna ever be perfect

They literally had a chance to win late if Grant makes 1 FT. He missed both. That’s not on Mazz

There’s something to also be said about effort and at times it didn’t seem like we showed any when trying to grab rebounds late

Grant got iced by Spida talking mess in his ear 

Grant did that to himself. He was more than eager to bark back, rather than focus on the task at hand. He's not an MJ or Bird type - focus on the game

[Indocelts]

Grant would be a good sales/marketing staff in a corporate world.
 
I think he has a plan to get his 20 million deal by becoming more well known around the league. His yapping to the refs, being a VP of the player union, being a referee for a preseason game, several in game mike ups, are part of his grand design to be a household name. He actually backed it up by his quality shooting, but recently  these extra activities backfire on him.

I just hope that he refocus on playing sound basketball without these extra activities.

[Kernewek]

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.

[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*?

[Kernewek]

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.

edit: And it's an offensive slump, IMO, that's caused by the players insofar as the shots aren't falling. It doesn't look like much has changed in terms of how they want to play - to the chagrin of some here.