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

[Silas]

It is interesting that people think Joe Mazzulla should be under pressure after a couple of losses, but that Spoelstra isn’t.

Why do you find that interesting?

I seem to remember Spoelstra at a similar point in his career facing heavy pressure from fans and media about championship expectations and being replaced by Pat Riley.

However, the statement was "Spoelstra isn't", rather than "Spoelstra wasn't".

Even if we're butchering the English language, Spoelstra was an 11 season assistant under Riley before taking over.  Mazzulla was a back bench assistant for three seasons.  11 years before getting his first NBA head coaching gig, Joe Mazulla was an alcoholic who battered women.  Apples and apples and all of that, if we want to compare what leashes they should be given.

11 years with the Heat, at any rate. We're saying the same thing, though - Spoelstra doesn't have any questions surrounding his coaching ability today because he's had a very good run as a head coach.

I'm just pointing out that no matter who you are, underachieving relative to expectations is a great way to find people clamoring for your job.

Joe was in college when he was arrested for allegedly grabbing a girl's neck at a bar, and the year before he was arrested for underage drinking at a Pirates baseball game.  You said he was an alcoholic who battered women (plural). How did you determine he was an alcoholic?  Was he found guilty in court of battering the woman in the bar and other women?  Is there a difference between Spoelstra's background with the Heat as a video coordinator and scout versus being a back bench assistant (I don't know what that means other than he doesn't sit next to the head coach during games).  Also, Spoelstra's career as a head coach wasn't that great to begin with...1st year, lost in 1st round: 2nd year, lost in 1st round; added James and Bosh the 3rd year and lost in the finals.  It was reported that Bosh and James were unhappy with him as their coach the first season together.  Anyway, that's in the past.  Let's give Joe a little time, like Riley gave Spoelstra.

[Roy H.]

It is interesting that people think Joe Mazzulla should be under pressure after a couple of losses, but that Spoelstra isn’t.

Why do you find that interesting?

I seem to remember Spoelstra at a similar point in his career facing heavy pressure from fans and media about championship expectations and being replaced by Pat Riley.

However, the statement was "Spoelstra isn't", rather than "Spoelstra wasn't".

Even if we're butchering the English language, Spoelstra was an 11 season assistant under Riley before taking over.  Mazzulla was a back bench assistant for three seasons.  11 years before getting his first NBA head coaching gig, Joe Mazulla was an alcoholic who battered women.  Apples and apples and all of that, if we want to compare what leashes they should be given.

11 years with the Heat, at any rate. We're saying the same thing, though - Spoelstra doesn't have any questions surrounding his coaching ability today because he's had a very good run as a head coach.

I'm just pointing out that no matter who you are, underachieving relative to expectations is a great way to find people clamoring for your job.

Joe was in college when he was arrested for allegedly grabbing a girl's neck at a bar, and the year before he was arrested for underage drinking at a Pirates baseball game.  You said he was an alcoholic who battered women (plural). How did you determine he was an alcoholic?  Was he found guilty in court of battering the woman in the bar and other women?  Is there a difference between Spoelstra's background with the Heat as a video coordinator and scout versus being a back bench assistant (I don't know what that means other than he doesn't sit next to the head coach during games).  Also, Spoelstra's career as a head coach wasn't that great to begin with...1st year, lost in 1st round: 2nd year, lost in 1st round; added James and Bosh the 3rd year and lost in the finals.  It was reported that Bosh and James were unhappy with him as their coach the first season together.  Anyway, that's in the past.  Let's give Joe a little time, like Riley gave Spoelstra.

I have a hard time taking this level of analysis seriously.  You're really going to argue semantics?  "Somebody who had serious alcohol problems who there is probable cause to suspect choked a woman and on a separate occasion fought with police".  That's what he was doing relative to the time period in which Spoelstra got hired as an NBA assistant.

But, congrats.  Joe took a team coming off the Finals that added the 6MOY and that benefited from a vastly improved Derrick White, and led that team to an ECF loss against the #8 seed that was missing multiple rotation players.  That's way more impressive than Spoelstra leading a team that had won 15 games the prior year (30th offense, 26th defense) to 43 wins and the playoffs.  Spoelstra's second best scorer was Michael Beasley (13.9 ppg).

[Silas]

It is interesting that people think Joe Mazzulla should be under pressure after a couple of losses, but that Spoelstra isn’t.

Why do you find that interesting?

I seem to remember Spoelstra at a similar point in his career facing heavy pressure from fans and media about championship expectations and being replaced by Pat Riley.

However, the statement was "Spoelstra isn't", rather than "Spoelstra wasn't".

Even if we're butchering the English language, Spoelstra was an 11 season assistant under Riley before taking over.  Mazzulla was a back bench assistant for three seasons.  11 years before getting his first NBA head coaching gig, Joe Mazulla was an alcoholic who battered women.  Apples and apples and all of that, if we want to compare what leashes they should be given.

11 years with the Heat, at any rate. We're saying the same thing, though - Spoelstra doesn't have any questions surrounding his coaching ability today because he's had a very good run as a head coach.

I'm just pointing out that no matter who you are, underachieving relative to expectations is a great way to find people clamoring for your job.

Joe was in college when he was arrested for allegedly grabbing a girl's neck at a bar, and the year before he was arrested for underage drinking at a Pirates baseball game.  You said he was an alcoholic who battered women (plural). How did you determine he was an alcoholic?  Was he found guilty in court of battering the woman in the bar and other women?  Is there a difference between Spoelstra's background with the Heat as a video coordinator and scout versus being a back bench assistant (I don't know what that means other than he doesn't sit next to the head coach during games).  Also, Spoelstra's career as a head coach wasn't that great to begin with...1st year, lost in 1st round: 2nd year, lost in 1st round; added James and Bosh the 3rd year and lost in the finals.  It was reported that Bosh and James were unhappy with him as their coach the first season together.  Anyway, that's in the past.  Let's give Joe a little time, like Riley gave Spoelstra.

I have a hard time taking this level of analysis seriously.  You're really going to argue semantics?  "Somebody who had serious alcohol problems who there is probable cause to suspect choked a woman and on a separate occasion fought with police".  That's what he was doing relative to the time period in which Spoelstra got hired as an NBA assistant.

But, congrats.  Joe took a team coming off the Finals that added the 6MOY and that benefited from a vastly improved Derrick White, and led that team to an ECF loss against the #8 seed that was missing multiple rotation players.  That's way more impressive than Spoelstra leading a team that had won 15 games the prior year (30th offense, 26th defense) to 43 wins and the playoffs.  Spoelstra's second best scorer was Michael Beasley (13.9 ppg).

I'm sure Joe will take your congrats. 

[SHAQATTACK]

Dang, this will now be the 11th time Joe has been fired this season

 

I believe he is used to it by now  .           “ Fire Joe ..Hire Spo “

[ozgod]

Dang, this will now be the 11th time Joe has been fired this season

 

I believe he is used to it by now  .           “ Fire Joe ..Hire Spo “

Any news on when the presser to announce Joe's termination will be?

[Roy H.]

Dang, this will now be the 11th time Joe has been fired this season

 

I believe he is used to it by now  .           “ Fire Joe ..Hire Spo “

If Spo ever became available, I think that every franchise that wants to win would immediately attempt to hire him. 

[ozgod]

Joe tried to explain to The Athletic's Jared Weiss some of the Xs and Os about why the Clippers piled on the points against them.

Even after a good shooting game, Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla sometimes gets annoyed when nobody in the media asks about the main thing on his mind: missed layups.

It’s supposed to be the easiest shot in the NBA, rolling the ball off your fingers onto the glass. But defenses are designed to funnel drivers into a shot blocker and make that the toughest look on the court. Aside from a turnover, missing these shots poses the highest risk of giving up points on the other end.

Boston’s loss on Saturday night to the Clippers, their second straight to a potential NBA Finals opponent at home after starting the season 20-0 at the Garden, made it clear why close-range shots can be their biggest enemy.

“I think our lack of an efficient offense caused us to put a ton of pressure on our defense,” Mazzulla said after the 115-96 loss. “So they had 20 points in transition. We are the No. 1 transition defensive team. But inefficient offensively, whether it was a missed shot, missed layup, turnover, I thought our bad offense impacted our defense.”

What exactly does that look like? Sure, the Clippers  scored off turnovers routinely in their blowout victory. It’s hard to get a stop when you lose the ball. But the Celtics had only 11 turnovers against LA and a franchise record for fewest turnovers in a game (2) in their last home loss, against Denver. The Celtics are taking care of the ball in the most obvious sense, and the main reason they lost was ice-cold shooting from deep.

But even when they aren’t losing the ball and are piling up bricks, there is room to run a clean offense that leads to a stable defense. This game was emblematic of why Mazzulla always stresses that understanding transition defense requires analyzing how the Celtics run their offense.

It all comes back to not missing layups. It’s plays like these that drive Mazzulla nuts, forcing a contested layup early in the clock while ignoring the spacing because Kawhi Leonard buried a shot on the prior play. Just watch how that plays out.


https://x.com/LAClippers/status/1751421824120828258?s=20

Terance Mann is gifted the uncontested alley-oop because Derrick White got mixed up when he stopped chasing Mann to take Al Horford’s man, Mason Plumlee, in the middle lane. After being just about the only good transition defender on the roster all night, White appeared to make a matchup mistake. But Mazzulla knows those are the easiest mistakes to make in any phase of the game.

The easiest mistake to avoid is the kind of shot Jaylen Brown took that led to the fast break in the video above. It’s not that he tried taking a floater over Paul George, who was locking him up all night. It wasn’t that he didn’t commit to driving the middle so he could either drop it off to Jrue Holiday or kick it to an open White in the corner. It’s that he didn’t play with force, and that left him and Holiday behind the ball as the Clippers started pushing the other way.

Brown looked like he wasn’t comfortable dribbling into that open space in the middle of the paint because the Clippers had been good at getting strips, steering drives into traps, and throwing the Celtics out of sync.

“I thought they did a good job of messing up the timing of every one of our passes with their active hands,” Mazzulla said. “And so what looked like a guy open, we missed it a half a second because of their activity and their active hands. And it kind of messed up the timing and rhythm of our offense, especially when we got into the paint.”

Watching the Celtics get beaten in transition seemed strange. But when Mazzulla was asked about execution in that phase, he rarely addressed the particular mechanics or strategy of transition defense.

Mazzulla isn’t harping on poor angles or getting bad support from the wings. It starts with offensive decision-making and how his players handle that first split second when they are losing possession.

“Well, you’ve got to remember transition defense is not its own entity. It’s a byproduct of other things, right?” Mazzulla said. “So the three things that led to transition tonight were missed layups, deflected passes that messed up the timing of our offense and the angle of our crashing. I think there was a few times where we crashed baseline-side instead of towards the middle of the floor where we’ve got guys behind the line of the basketball, and our bad offensive rebounding spacing led to that.”

https://theathletic.com/5233961/2024/01/29/celtics-clippers-loss-transition-defense/

I guess the next question that should have been asked is, if he knew this was happening why didn't they do something about it?? 

[Roy H.]

Joe tried to explain to The Athletic's Jared Weiss some of the Xs and Os about why the Clippers piled on the points against them.

Even after a good shooting game, Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla sometimes gets annoyed when nobody in the media asks about the main thing on his mind: missed layups.

It’s supposed to be the easiest shot in the NBA, rolling the ball off your fingers onto the glass. But defenses are designed to funnel drivers into a shot blocker and make that the toughest look on the court. Aside from a turnover, missing these shots poses the highest risk of giving up points on the other end.

Boston’s loss on Saturday night to the Clippers, their second straight to a potential NBA Finals opponent at home after starting the season 20-0 at the Garden, made it clear why close-range shots can be their biggest enemy.

“I think our lack of an efficient offense caused us to put a ton of pressure on our defense,” Mazzulla said after the 115-96 loss. “So they had 20 points in transition. We are the No. 1 transition defensive team. But inefficient offensively, whether it was a missed shot, missed layup, turnover, I thought our bad offense impacted our defense.”

What exactly does that look like? Sure, the Clippers  scored off turnovers routinely in their blowout victory. It’s hard to get a stop when you lose the ball. But the Celtics had only 11 turnovers against LA and a franchise record for fewest turnovers in a game (2) in their last home loss, against Denver. The Celtics are taking care of the ball in the most obvious sense, and the main reason they lost was ice-cold shooting from deep.

But even when they aren’t losing the ball and are piling up bricks, there is room to run a clean offense that leads to a stable defense. This game was emblematic of why Mazzulla always stresses that understanding transition defense requires analyzing how the Celtics run their offense.

It all comes back to not missing layups. It’s plays like these that drive Mazzulla nuts, forcing a contested layup early in the clock while ignoring the spacing because Kawhi Leonard buried a shot on the prior play. Just watch how that plays out.


https://x.com/LAClippers/status/1751421824120828258?s=20

Terance Mann is gifted the uncontested alley-oop because Derrick White got mixed up when he stopped chasing Mann to take Al Horford’s man, Mason Plumlee, in the middle lane. After being just about the only good transition defender on the roster all night, White appeared to make a matchup mistake. But Mazzulla knows those are the easiest mistakes to make in any phase of the game.

The easiest mistake to avoid is the kind of shot Jaylen Brown took that led to the fast break in the video above. It’s not that he tried taking a floater over Paul George, who was locking him up all night. It wasn’t that he didn’t commit to driving the middle so he could either drop it off to Jrue Holiday or kick it to an open White in the corner. It’s that he didn’t play with force, and that left him and Holiday behind the ball as the Clippers started pushing the other way.

Brown looked like he wasn’t comfortable dribbling into that open space in the middle of the paint because the Clippers had been good at getting strips, steering drives into traps, and throwing the Celtics out of sync.

“I thought they did a good job of messing up the timing of every one of our passes with their active hands,” Mazzulla said. “And so what looked like a guy open, we missed it a half a second because of their activity and their active hands. And it kind of messed up the timing and rhythm of our offense, especially when we got into the paint.”

Watching the Celtics get beaten in transition seemed strange. But when Mazzulla was asked about execution in that phase, he rarely addressed the particular mechanics or strategy of transition defense.

Mazzulla isn’t harping on poor angles or getting bad support from the wings. It starts with offensive decision-making and how his players handle that first split second when they are losing possession.

“Well, you’ve got to remember transition defense is not its own entity. It’s a byproduct of other things, right?” Mazzulla said. “So the three things that led to transition tonight were missed layups, deflected passes that messed up the timing of our offense and the angle of our crashing. I think there was a few times where we crashed baseline-side instead of towards the middle of the floor where we’ve got guys behind the line of the basketball, and our bad offensive rebounding spacing led to that.”

https://theathletic.com/5233961/2024/01/29/celtics-clippers-loss-transition-defense/

I guess the next question that should have been asked is, if he knew this was happening why didn't they do something about it?? 

Somebody should ask him if basing the offense around a shot teams miss about 63% of the time is the best way to avoid transition points.  There are many, many more missed threes than there are missed layups.

[Kernewek]

Hard to quantify as transition baskets encompass a variety of scenarios, but it's worth considering that as of this post the Celtics currently give up the same number of fast break points as the Orlando Magic(13.7), and essentially give up the same number as the San Antonio Spurs[13.8], the Memphis Grizzlies(13.6), the Miami Heat(13.9), and the Denver Nuggets(13.4), so it would be hard to say that shooting threes more often moves the needle very much.

edit: now featuring a working link.

[Roy H.]

Hard to quantify as transition baskets encompass a variety of scenarios, but it's worth considering that as of this post the Celtics currently give up the same number of fast break points as the Orlando Magic(13.7), and essentially give up the same number as the San Antonio Spurs[13.8], the Memphis Grizzlies(13.6), the Miami Heat(13.9), and the Denver Nuggets(13.4), so it would be hard to say that shooting threes more often moves the needle very much.

edit: now featuring a working link.

Are those stats pace-adjusted?

[Moranis]

Joe tried to explain to The Athletic's Jared Weiss some of the Xs and Os about why the Clippers piled on the points against them.

Even after a good shooting game, Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla sometimes gets annoyed when nobody in the media asks about the main thing on his mind: missed layups.

It’s supposed to be the easiest shot in the NBA, rolling the ball off your fingers onto the glass. But defenses are designed to funnel drivers into a shot blocker and make that the toughest look on the court. Aside from a turnover, missing these shots poses the highest risk of giving up points on the other end.

Boston’s loss on Saturday night to the Clippers, their second straight to a potential NBA Finals opponent at home after starting the season 20-0 at the Garden, made it clear why close-range shots can be their biggest enemy.

“I think our lack of an efficient offense caused us to put a ton of pressure on our defense,” Mazzulla said after the 115-96 loss. “So they had 20 points in transition. We are the No. 1 transition defensive team. But inefficient offensively, whether it was a missed shot, missed layup, turnover, I thought our bad offense impacted our defense.”

What exactly does that look like? Sure, the Clippers  scored off turnovers routinely in their blowout victory. It’s hard to get a stop when you lose the ball. But the Celtics had only 11 turnovers against LA and a franchise record for fewest turnovers in a game (2) in their last home loss, against Denver. The Celtics are taking care of the ball in the most obvious sense, and the main reason they lost was ice-cold shooting from deep.

But even when they aren’t losing the ball and are piling up bricks, there is room to run a clean offense that leads to a stable defense. This game was emblematic of why Mazzulla always stresses that understanding transition defense requires analyzing how the Celtics run their offense.

It all comes back to not missing layups. It’s plays like these that drive Mazzulla nuts, forcing a contested layup early in the clock while ignoring the spacing because Kawhi Leonard buried a shot on the prior play. Just watch how that plays out.


https://x.com/LAClippers/status/1751421824120828258?s=20

Terance Mann is gifted the uncontested alley-oop because Derrick White got mixed up when he stopped chasing Mann to take Al Horford’s man, Mason Plumlee, in the middle lane. After being just about the only good transition defender on the roster all night, White appeared to make a matchup mistake. But Mazzulla knows those are the easiest mistakes to make in any phase of the game.

The easiest mistake to avoid is the kind of shot Jaylen Brown took that led to the fast break in the video above. It’s not that he tried taking a floater over Paul George, who was locking him up all night. It wasn’t that he didn’t commit to driving the middle so he could either drop it off to Jrue Holiday or kick it to an open White in the corner. It’s that he didn’t play with force, and that left him and Holiday behind the ball as the Clippers started pushing the other way.

Brown looked like he wasn’t comfortable dribbling into that open space in the middle of the paint because the Clippers had been good at getting strips, steering drives into traps, and throwing the Celtics out of sync.

“I thought they did a good job of messing up the timing of every one of our passes with their active hands,” Mazzulla said. “And so what looked like a guy open, we missed it a half a second because of their activity and their active hands. And it kind of messed up the timing and rhythm of our offense, especially when we got into the paint.”

Watching the Celtics get beaten in transition seemed strange. But when Mazzulla was asked about execution in that phase, he rarely addressed the particular mechanics or strategy of transition defense.

Mazzulla isn’t harping on poor angles or getting bad support from the wings. It starts with offensive decision-making and how his players handle that first split second when they are losing possession.

“Well, you’ve got to remember transition defense is not its own entity. It’s a byproduct of other things, right?” Mazzulla said. “So the three things that led to transition tonight were missed layups, deflected passes that messed up the timing of our offense and the angle of our crashing. I think there was a few times where we crashed baseline-side instead of towards the middle of the floor where we’ve got guys behind the line of the basketball, and our bad offensive rebounding spacing led to that.”

https://theathletic.com/5233961/2024/01/29/celtics-clippers-loss-transition-defense/

I guess the next question that should have been asked is, if he knew this was happening why didn't they do something about it?? 

Somebody should ask him if basing the offense around a shot teams miss about 63% of the time is the best way to avoid transition points.  There are many, many more missed threes than there are missed layups.

Sure, but a missed 3 comes at the 3npoint line, making it far easier to get back on defense

[Roy H.]

Joe tried to explain to The Athletic's Jared Weiss some of the Xs and Os about why the Clippers piled on the points against them.

Even after a good shooting game, Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla sometimes gets annoyed when nobody in the media asks about the main thing on his mind: missed layups.

It’s supposed to be the easiest shot in the NBA, rolling the ball off your fingers onto the glass. But defenses are designed to funnel drivers into a shot blocker and make that the toughest look on the court. Aside from a turnover, missing these shots poses the highest risk of giving up points on the other end.

Boston’s loss on Saturday night to the Clippers, their second straight to a potential NBA Finals opponent at home after starting the season 20-0 at the Garden, made it clear why close-range shots can be their biggest enemy.

“I think our lack of an efficient offense caused us to put a ton of pressure on our defense,” Mazzulla said after the 115-96 loss. “So they had 20 points in transition. We are the No. 1 transition defensive team. But inefficient offensively, whether it was a missed shot, missed layup, turnover, I thought our bad offense impacted our defense.”

What exactly does that look like? Sure, the Clippers  scored off turnovers routinely in their blowout victory. It’s hard to get a stop when you lose the ball. But the Celtics had only 11 turnovers against LA and a franchise record for fewest turnovers in a game (2) in their last home loss, against Denver. The Celtics are taking care of the ball in the most obvious sense, and the main reason they lost was ice-cold shooting from deep.

But even when they aren’t losing the ball and are piling up bricks, there is room to run a clean offense that leads to a stable defense. This game was emblematic of why Mazzulla always stresses that understanding transition defense requires analyzing how the Celtics run their offense.

It all comes back to not missing layups. It’s plays like these that drive Mazzulla nuts, forcing a contested layup early in the clock while ignoring the spacing because Kawhi Leonard buried a shot on the prior play. Just watch how that plays out.


https://x.com/LAClippers/status/1751421824120828258?s=20

Terance Mann is gifted the uncontested alley-oop because Derrick White got mixed up when he stopped chasing Mann to take Al Horford’s man, Mason Plumlee, in the middle lane. After being just about the only good transition defender on the roster all night, White appeared to make a matchup mistake. But Mazzulla knows those are the easiest mistakes to make in any phase of the game.

The easiest mistake to avoid is the kind of shot Jaylen Brown took that led to the fast break in the video above. It’s not that he tried taking a floater over Paul George, who was locking him up all night. It wasn’t that he didn’t commit to driving the middle so he could either drop it off to Jrue Holiday or kick it to an open White in the corner. It’s that he didn’t play with force, and that left him and Holiday behind the ball as the Clippers started pushing the other way.

Brown looked like he wasn’t comfortable dribbling into that open space in the middle of the paint because the Clippers had been good at getting strips, steering drives into traps, and throwing the Celtics out of sync.

“I thought they did a good job of messing up the timing of every one of our passes with their active hands,” Mazzulla said. “And so what looked like a guy open, we missed it a half a second because of their activity and their active hands. And it kind of messed up the timing and rhythm of our offense, especially when we got into the paint.”

Watching the Celtics get beaten in transition seemed strange. But when Mazzulla was asked about execution in that phase, he rarely addressed the particular mechanics or strategy of transition defense.

Mazzulla isn’t harping on poor angles or getting bad support from the wings. It starts with offensive decision-making and how his players handle that first split second when they are losing possession.

“Well, you’ve got to remember transition defense is not its own entity. It’s a byproduct of other things, right?” Mazzulla said. “So the three things that led to transition tonight were missed layups, deflected passes that messed up the timing of our offense and the angle of our crashing. I think there was a few times where we crashed baseline-side instead of towards the middle of the floor where we’ve got guys behind the line of the basketball, and our bad offensive rebounding spacing led to that.”

https://theathletic.com/5233961/2024/01/29/celtics-clippers-loss-transition-defense/

I guess the next question that should have been asked is, if he knew this was happening why didn't they do something about it?? 

Somebody should ask him if basing the offense around a shot teams miss about 63% of the time is the best way to avoid transition points.  There are many, many more missed threes than there are missed layups.

Sure, but a missed 3 comes at the 3npoint line, making it far easier to get back on defense

Perhaps to some extent, but the sheer volume of missed threes (30+ per game) has to dwarf missed layup attempts.

[Moranis]

Joe tried to explain to The Athletic's Jared Weiss some of the Xs and Os about why the Clippers piled on the points against them.

Even after a good shooting game, Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla sometimes gets annoyed when nobody in the media asks about the main thing on his mind: missed layups.

It’s supposed to be the easiest shot in the NBA, rolling the ball off your fingers onto the glass. But defenses are designed to funnel drivers into a shot blocker and make that the toughest look on the court. Aside from a turnover, missing these shots poses the highest risk of giving up points on the other end.

Boston’s loss on Saturday night to the Clippers, their second straight to a potential NBA Finals opponent at home after starting the season 20-0 at the Garden, made it clear why close-range shots can be their biggest enemy.

“I think our lack of an efficient offense caused us to put a ton of pressure on our defense,” Mazzulla said after the 115-96 loss. “So they had 20 points in transition. We are the No. 1 transition defensive team. But inefficient offensively, whether it was a missed shot, missed layup, turnover, I thought our bad offense impacted our defense.”

What exactly does that look like? Sure, the Clippers  scored off turnovers routinely in their blowout victory. It’s hard to get a stop when you lose the ball. But the Celtics had only 11 turnovers against LA and a franchise record for fewest turnovers in a game (2) in their last home loss, against Denver. The Celtics are taking care of the ball in the most obvious sense, and the main reason they lost was ice-cold shooting from deep.

But even when they aren’t losing the ball and are piling up bricks, there is room to run a clean offense that leads to a stable defense. This game was emblematic of why Mazzulla always stresses that understanding transition defense requires analyzing how the Celtics run their offense.

It all comes back to not missing layups. It’s plays like these that drive Mazzulla nuts, forcing a contested layup early in the clock while ignoring the spacing because Kawhi Leonard buried a shot on the prior play. Just watch how that plays out.


https://x.com/LAClippers/status/1751421824120828258?s=20

Terance Mann is gifted the uncontested alley-oop because Derrick White got mixed up when he stopped chasing Mann to take Al Horford’s man, Mason Plumlee, in the middle lane. After being just about the only good transition defender on the roster all night, White appeared to make a matchup mistake. But Mazzulla knows those are the easiest mistakes to make in any phase of the game.

The easiest mistake to avoid is the kind of shot Jaylen Brown took that led to the fast break in the video above. It’s not that he tried taking a floater over Paul George, who was locking him up all night. It wasn’t that he didn’t commit to driving the middle so he could either drop it off to Jrue Holiday or kick it to an open White in the corner. It’s that he didn’t play with force, and that left him and Holiday behind the ball as the Clippers started pushing the other way.

Brown looked like he wasn’t comfortable dribbling into that open space in the middle of the paint because the Clippers had been good at getting strips, steering drives into traps, and throwing the Celtics out of sync.

“I thought they did a good job of messing up the timing of every one of our passes with their active hands,” Mazzulla said. “And so what looked like a guy open, we missed it a half a second because of their activity and their active hands. And it kind of messed up the timing and rhythm of our offense, especially when we got into the paint.”

Watching the Celtics get beaten in transition seemed strange. But when Mazzulla was asked about execution in that phase, he rarely addressed the particular mechanics or strategy of transition defense.

Mazzulla isn’t harping on poor angles or getting bad support from the wings. It starts with offensive decision-making and how his players handle that first split second when they are losing possession.

“Well, you’ve got to remember transition defense is not its own entity. It’s a byproduct of other things, right?” Mazzulla said. “So the three things that led to transition tonight were missed layups, deflected passes that messed up the timing of our offense and the angle of our crashing. I think there was a few times where we crashed baseline-side instead of towards the middle of the floor where we’ve got guys behind the line of the basketball, and our bad offensive rebounding spacing led to that.”

https://theathletic.com/5233961/2024/01/29/celtics-clippers-loss-transition-defense/

I guess the next question that should have been asked is, if he knew this was happening why didn't they do something about it?? 

Somebody should ask him if basing the offense around a shot teams miss about 63% of the time is the best way to avoid transition points.  There are many, many more missed threes than there are missed layups.

Sure, but a missed 3 comes at the 3npoint line, making it far easier to get back on defense

Perhaps to some extent, but the sheer volume of missed threes (30+ per game) has to dwarf missed layup attempts.

Sure, but again it is about transition defense, not defense after a miss. The vast majority of missed 3's do not turn into transitions. While a lower total overall, a significantly greater percentage of shots missed at the rim do turn into transition attempts.

[Kernewek]

Hard to quantify as transition baskets encompass a variety of scenarios, but it's worth considering that as of this post the Celtics currently give up the same number of fast break points as the Orlando Magic(13.7), and essentially give up the same number as the San Antonio Spurs[13.8], the Memphis Grizzlies(13.6), the Miami Heat(13.9), and the Denver Nuggets(13.4), so it would be hard to say that shooting threes more often moves the needle very much.

edit: now featuring a working link.

Are those stats pace-adjusted?

No, but there doesn't seem to be a particularly compelling reason to adjust this team-wide data for pace given the relatively small spread - there would be a bigger argument for doing it at the lineup level, I think.

Generally, you can correlate good defense with a slower pace, but I don't know if we can really attribute a meaningful difference in fastbreak points between Memphis (Pace of 100.1 possessions), San Antonio's (pace of 101.6), Orlando (98.3) Denver (98.1), Boston (98.5) and Miami (96.3) to pace, considering that Memphis and Boston have the best defensive ratings of the six.

edit: five teams, not four. And I forgot Orlando, so that's six teams.

[jpotter33]

Tonight is another example of why so many are frustrated with Joe's approach and philosophy for our offense. Given how heavily we favor the three ball, we are now regularly giving up open lanes and shots at the basket for three point attempts, even when we're shooting abysmally.

25 of our 45 shots have been threes tonight, for a whopping 24.0% from three and dragging down the overall fg% to a mere 44.4%.