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

[terra haute]

With what the players are making these days it's going to be difficult for a coach to do a whole lot in my opinion. Some strategy but not really a whole lot else as far as yanking guys for doing stupid stuff and not playing well.

[Indocelts]

Shams Charania said the Celtics will likely use the offseason to bring in more veteran assistants who can help take some of the pressure off the young coach.

“If he got swept, I think there would be a lot more questions… but the fact that it did go to game 7, I think it allowed the Celtics to see that there is a little bit of runway, some potential here.”

Shams Charania on Joe Mazzulla’s future with the Celtics.

There's no potential.  He's a players' coach who prefers to "collaborate", while demanding nothing of his players other than lazy defense and stagnant movement leading to lots of sub-optimal 3PAs.  The system works great in the 40% of games where we shoot an elite percentage.  Anything below that, though, and we're a sub-.500 team.

And even better:  when the threes aren't falling, he refuses to adjust, and won't play the very good shooters (Hauser, Muscula) on the bench.

Playing the good shooters more minutes was the reason the system   excelled in the first 2 months of the season.

Post ASG, when Joe tightened the rotation and let the core players (JB, JT and Smart)  shoot 3s at will,  the system showed its ugly face. It just didn't work quite as well as previously thought.

What? The Celtics were 42-17 before the All Star Game. That's a 58 win pace. They finished with... 57 wins.

edit: and from earlier in the thread, since you brought it up again:
Before the All Star break, the Celtics shot 37.5% from three. After the All Star break, the Celtics shot 37.4% from three.

I take it that you simply forget to include the playoff games as well.

You're welcome

[Kernewek]

Shams Charania said the Celtics will likely use the offseason to bring in more veteran assistants who can help take some of the pressure off the young coach.

“If he got swept, I think there would be a lot more questions… but the fact that it did go to game 7, I think it allowed the Celtics to see that there is a little bit of runway, some potential here.”

Shams Charania on Joe Mazzulla’s future with the Celtics.

There's no potential.  He's a players' coach who prefers to "collaborate", while demanding nothing of his players other than lazy defense and stagnant movement leading to lots of sub-optimal 3PAs.  The system works great in the 40% of games where we shoot an elite percentage.  Anything below that, though, and we're a sub-.500 team.

And even better:  when the threes aren't falling, he refuses to adjust, and won't play the very good shooters (Hauser, Muscula) on the bench.

Playing the good shooters more minutes was the reason the system   excelled in the first 2 months of the season.

Post ASG, when Joe tightened the rotation and let the core players (JB, JT and Smart)  shoot 3s at will,  the system showed its ugly face. It just didn't work quite as well as previously thought.

What? The Celtics were 42-17 before the All Star Game. That's a 58 win pace. They finished with... 57 wins.

edit: and from earlier in the thread, since you brought it up again:
Before the All Star break, the Celtics shot 37.5% from three. After the All Star break, the Celtics shot 37.4% from three.

I take it that you simply forget to include the playoff games as well.

You're welcome

If you're going to try and be sassy, you can at least try to be right.

I did include the playoff games the first time I replied on the topic:
https://forum.celticsstrong.com/index.php?topic=107889.msg3166312#msg3166312

Before the All Star break, the Celtics shot 37.5% from deep. After the All Star break, the Celtics shot 37.4% from deep.


Now, if we want to shift the goalposts and say "well we have 60 games before the ASB and only 22 games after so surely we would have gotten worse something something blither blather", we can include the post-season in our post ASB (even though this was not part of the original argument) and... after the all star break and including the post-season...


the Celtics shot 37.28 from deep. so one-quarter of one percent worse. That's not 'much less accurate' in any universe I'm familiar with.

[GreenEnvy]

Move on from Brad and Joe.

I'm moving Zarren up and opening up a coaching search, although my main guys are Frank Vogel and Monty Williams.

Why would you move on from Brad? He provided the necessary pieces. Gallinari got hurt and then Joe didn't use the tools available to him.  Maybe you can fault Brad for entrusting Joe with coaching the team but things didn't go south till they gave Joe the permanent job.

Did he?  How many TPE's expired last year and what was the value on them?  What trade did he make at the deadline?  Things were done ahead of the season, but he never replaced Gallinari when he went down and that was huge.  Look at the firsts he's given up?  Yeah, I'm not sold!

2019:  Romeo (14), Matisse (20) traded to PHL, Grant (22)
2020:  Aaron ((14), PP (26, Bane (30) traded to Memphis
2021:  None (OKC)
2022:  None (Spurs)
2023:  None (Indy)

Most TPE’s wind up expiring, that’s nothing new.

He brought in Muscala at the deadline, who made sense but Joe didn’t use him. Hard to blame a GM for not making any trades when you don’t know what work was put in. You have to grade him on the trades he did, not the hypothetical ones he didn’t.

Most of your list was Danny’s doing, and White and Brogdon as better than any players we could have selected, at least in the present.

[Boston Garden Leprechaun]

and here it is

game 7 should not save joes job!!!

"In fairness, most 34-year-olds with Mazzulla’s limited experience would have struggled, but that’s not a reason to keep him. Keeping Mazzulla for another year is throwing good money after bad. With the right leader, this Celtics team is ready to win a championship. Even after the Sixers hired Nick Nurse, Monty Williams and Mike Budenholzer are still out there."

https://www.masslive.com/celtics/2023/05/the-celtics-reaching-game-7-shouldnt-save-joe-mazzullas-job-vautour.html?mibextid=Zxz2cZ

[Roy H.]

and here it is

game 7 should not save joes job!!!

"In fairness, most 34-year-olds with Mazzulla’s limited experience would have struggled, but that’s not a reason to keep him. Keeping Mazzulla for another year is throwing good money after bad. With the right leader, this Celtics team is ready to win a championship. Even after the Sixers hired Nick Nurse, Monty Williams and Mike Budenholzer are still out there."

https://www.masslive.com/celtics/2023/05/the-celtics-reaching-game-7-shouldnt-save-joe-mazzullas-job-vautour.html?mibextid=Zxz2cZ

Yep.  Both would be significant improvements over Joe, probably at least as valuable as any player we can add in free agency.

[angryguy77]

and here it is

game 7 should not save joes job!!!

"In fairness, most 34-year-olds with Mazzulla’s limited experience would have struggled, but that’s not a reason to keep him. Keeping Mazzulla for another year is throwing good money after bad. With the right leader, this Celtics team is ready to win a championship. Even after the Sixers hired Nick Nurse, Monty Williams and Mike Budenholzer are still out there."

https://www.masslive.com/celtics/2023/05/the-celtics-reaching-game-7-shouldnt-save-joe-mazzullas-job-vautour.html?mibextid=Zxz2cZ

Yep.  Both would be significant improvements over Joe, probably at least as valuable as any player we can add in free agency.

I'm iffy on Bud. Many were upset at his defensive scheme which allowed Grant to shoot 3's all day in game seven against us. Then again, he would be an upgrade.

[jpotter33]

and here it is

game 7 should not save joes job!!!

"In fairness, most 34-year-olds with Mazzulla’s limited experience would have struggled, but that’s not a reason to keep him. Keeping Mazzulla for another year is throwing good money after bad. With the right leader, this Celtics team is ready to win a championship. Even after the Sixers hired Nick Nurse, Monty Williams and Mike Budenholzer are still out there."

https://www.masslive.com/celtics/2023/05/the-celtics-reaching-game-7-shouldnt-save-joe-mazzullas-job-vautour.html?mibextid=Zxz2cZ

Yep.  Both would be significant improvements over Joe, probably at least as valuable as any player we can add in free agency.

I'm iffy on Bud. Many were upset at his defensive scheme which allowed Grant to shoot 3's all day in game seven against us. Then again, he would be an upgrade.

Yeah, Bud has some of the same issues historically (not managing the game enough), so not sure about him.

Unsure Monty is what these guys need. He’s definitely better than Joe, but not sure he holds them accountable.

With Nurse gone, I like Atkinson the best. Think he’s hood the guys accountable and bring the toughness we need. Though, unfortunately, I wouldn’t bet on us firing Joe due to the fool’s gold wins.

[Stig]

I'm not sure Monty Williams is the answer, he can make a bad team good, but failed to bring a good one to championship level.

[Stig]

Who we hire as the next coach is probably going to be dictated by Tatum and Brown, assuming we want to keep Brown. If we have 3 coaches in 3 years and fail to make any progress, I can't imagine how Tatum can be confident about this management, and if we lose Brown on top of that, it can be disastrous down the road.

[Boston Garden Leprechaun]

I'm not sure Monty Williams is the answer, he can make a bad team good, but failed to bring a good one to championship level.

pels fans here hated monty

[gouki88]

Al just abominable all night, yet he got 34 minutes to Timelord's 14 minutes.

And that's all on Joe's fascination with the three ball offense and refusal to play Timelord big minutes because he provides less spacing.

For the love of God, just move on from this guy.

I don’t like the 3 ball either, but you do realize that this is how Brad wants the team to play, right?

Then why did we attempt significantly fewer under both Brad and Ime?

You know, I wonder about this. At first I thought it might be a pace thing - as in people evaluating raw numbers without taking into account shot opportunities - but since 2018, more or less, we've actually played slower and slower, per B/R, and we were squarely in the middle of the pack when it came to shots per game.

But - and this is also important for the discussion - last year, under Udoka, we shot 37.1 threes per game at a 35.5% clip (approximately 39.5ppg of our offense). This season we shot 42.1 at a 37.7% clip, good for sixth in the league and 47.6ppg of our offense.

So Mazza's offense definitely had us shooting more threes, but we also made more threes. food for thought.

I think the improvement was interesting, but we lost sight of balance in offence. We saw that when we would be dominating inside (Philly series jumps to mind) yet seemed to avoid the strong areas due to Joe’s tenets. The commitment / stubbornness in the face of contrary evidence is what really bothered me, and I think it was taken to a new level under Joe.

I think the offence needs reorientation. But I also think that is a product of the roster. We lack a lot of dribble penetration from our guards (the kind of quickness that other teams have), and we went away from high post playmaking.

I think the stats would be a much different read between pre All Star and post All Star. Our playoff play style is a continuation of the post All Star. We are much less accurate shooting 3s post All Star.

I think that correlates with Joe becoming the genuine head coach, rather than the interim.

The good news is that this is something we can check, and we don't have to make assumptions (which in this case, turn out to be incorrect).

Before the All Star break, the Celtics shot 37.5% from deep. After the All Star break, the Celtics shot 37.4% from deep.


Now, if we want to shift the goalposts and say "well we have 60 games before the ASB and only 22 games after so surely we would have gotten worse something something blither blather", we can include the post-season in our post ASB (even though this was not part of the original argument) and... after the all star break and including the post-season...


the Celtics shot 37.28 from deep. so one-quarter of one percent worse. That's not 'much less accurate' in any universe I'm familiar with.

That said, these maths aren't adding up - so if someone wants to double check me I'd welcome it.

Per BBR's game log page, the Celtics shot 37.54% from the regular season overall - as in, if you export the regular season games and take the average, you get 37.54%
But the season totals page has it at 37.7%

Ratio of 3PAs vs 2PAs pre and post-break? It felt like to me that the scales tipped significantly. Also felt as if we were generating less open ones through driving.

[Kernewek]

Al just abominable all night, yet he got 34 minutes to Timelord's 14 minutes.

And that's all on Joe's fascination with the three ball offense and refusal to play Timelord big minutes because he provides less spacing.

For the love of God, just move on from this guy.

I don’t like the 3 ball either, but you do realize that this is how Brad wants the team to play, right?

Then why did we attempt significantly fewer under both Brad and Ime?

You know, I wonder about this. At first I thought it might be a pace thing - as in people evaluating raw numbers without taking into account shot opportunities - but since 2018, more or less, we've actually played slower and slower, per B/R, and we were squarely in the middle of the pack when it came to shots per game.

But - and this is also important for the discussion - last year, under Udoka, we shot 37.1 threes per game at a 35.5% clip (approximately 39.5ppg of our offense). This season we shot 42.1 at a 37.7% clip, good for sixth in the league and 47.6ppg of our offense.

So Mazza's offense definitely had us shooting more threes, but we also made more threes. food for thought.

I think the improvement was interesting, but we lost sight of balance in offence. We saw that when we would be dominating inside (Philly series jumps to mind) yet seemed to avoid the strong areas due to Joe’s tenets. The commitment / stubbornness in the face of contrary evidence is what really bothered me, and I think it was taken to a new level under Joe.

I think the offence needs reorientation. But I also think that is a product of the roster. We lack a lot of dribble penetration from our guards (the kind of quickness that other teams have), and we went away from high post playmaking.

I think the stats would be a much different read between pre All Star and post All Star. Our playoff play style is a continuation of the post All Star. We are much less accurate shooting 3s post All Star.

I think that correlates with Joe becoming the genuine head coach, rather than the interim.

The good news is that this is something we can check, and we don't have to make assumptions (which in this case, turn out to be incorrect).

Before the All Star break, the Celtics shot 37.5% from deep. After the All Star break, the Celtics shot 37.4% from deep.


Now, if we want to shift the goalposts and say "well we have 60 games before the ASB and only 22 games after so surely we would have gotten worse something something blither blather", we can include the post-season in our post ASB (even though this was not part of the original argument) and... after the all star break and including the post-season...


the Celtics shot 37.28 from deep. so one-quarter of one percent worse. That's not 'much less accurate' in any universe I'm familiar with.

That said, these maths aren't adding up - so if someone wants to double check me I'd welcome it.

Per BBR's game log page, the Celtics shot 37.54% from the regular season overall - as in, if you export the regular season games and take the average, you get 37.54%
But the season totals page has it at 37.7%

Ratio of 3PAs vs 2PAs pre and post-break? It felt like to me that the scales tipped significantly. Also felt as if we were generating less open ones through driving.

Good thing I saved the csv (which anyone with a copy of excel or Google Sheets can download and use via BBall Ref, if they so fancy).

second edit: here's a screenshot of the relevant data because creating a table on here is awful:



I can't get drives quite as easily though so that'll have to wait if no one else finds it in the meantime.
2PA Pre ASB:  45.93
2PA Post ASB: 46.79
2PA Post ASB (including playoffs): 46.8

Since I was curious, we averaged 22.1 FTs before the break, and 20.21 afterwards (20.28 if you include the playoffs in that set).

edit: forgot the threes!
Pre ASB: 42.23
Post ASB: 43.48
Post ASB (inc. playoffs): 41.21
And, if we look at just the playoffs, 38.4 3PA to 46.85 2PA


So, uh, before I run and hide in a hole for the rest of the thread... maybe we actually didn't shoot enough threes? 

[jpotter33]

https://twitter.com/john_zannis/status/1663571375292858370?s=46&t=lGU0TGXtwjkuVuoin6WTNw

WOW. Shams reporting that Joe Mazzulla has 3 years and $14 million coming to him on his extension. Hard to see Wyc eating that.

Surely Shams is wrong on this. No way we gave a new coach with that little experience this much money. If so, Brad and Wyc need to hit the road, too.

I imagine this is wrong.

[RJ87]

I'm not sure Monty Williams is the answer, he can make a bad team good, but failed to bring a good one to championship level.

I'm not sure how Monty could've compensated for the team trading all of their depth for KD and then losing two starters in the playoffs. Sure, KD and Book could throw flames but you need something beyond that besides Landry Shamet and Cameron Payne.