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

[celticinorlando]

He’s just not ready

[Roy H.]

The stats don't even back Joe up in these situations:

Celtics trailing by 3 or less, in final 30 seconds of 4th Q or OT, of regular season games (per PBP stats) … Coming out of timeout: 17 POSS 23 PTS 5-9 FG 4-9 3PT 1 turnover Plays not following timeouts: 11 POSS 8 PTS 2-6 FG 0-2 3PT 4 turnovers

[ozgod]

I have no doubt that Joe does some things very well that are unseen by fans.

That said, the 2 timeout opportunities were ‘spotlight’ moments and, especially after the first one resulted in a Smart 3 attempt (which couldn’t have been anyone’s 1st or 2nd choice), he wilted and opted to let the players take over rather than coaching the team.   Joe wilted under pressure twice. The first cost them a decent chance to win in regulation, the 2nd cost them the game. Hopefully it won’t end up costing the series.

The problem is, the spotlight moments are what we see and judge him on. He's undergoing a trial by fire and the only way to pass it is to win a championship. I'm sure he knew that when he took the job.

[celticinorlando]

IF Boston loses this series to an absolutely average sixers team it will go down as a massive choke job and joe’s the A1 culprit

[86MaxwellSmart]

IF Boston loses this series to an absolutely average sixers team it will go down as a massive choke job and joe’s the A1 culprit

Agreed.

[libermaniac]

IF Boston loses this series to an absolutely average sixers team it will go down as a massive choke job and joe’s the A1 culprit

I’m curious. Why is the consensus that Boston is way better than Philly? We won 3 more games than them during the regular season and they have the league MVP and a 7 time all star who can get scorching hot and is very crafty and can get to the line. Maxey is also a solid young player. Boston is far deeper than them and therefore should be favored, but would it really be THAT much of an upset to lose?

[Who]

IF Boston loses this series to an absolutely average sixers team it will go down as a massive choke job and joe’s the A1 culprit

I’m curious. Why is the consensus that Boston is way better than Philly? We won 3 more games than them during the regular season and they have the league MVP and a 7 time all star who can get scorching hot and is very crafty and can get to the line. Maxey is also a solid young player. Boston is far deeper than them and therefore should be favored, but would it really be THAT much of an upset to lose?

Yeah, Philly is not an average team. They are a top 5 team in the league or thereabouts. My top five would be BOS, MIL, PHI, DEN, PHO not in that order.

BOS should win. They are better. But PHI are pretty good in their own right. BOS is about as tough a matchup for PHI due to their speed & quicknes and strong depth. PHI would look much better against most other top teams than they do against BOS.

It would certainly be an upset for BOS to lose but PHI are a very good team in their own right.

[Roy H.]

IF Boston loses this series to an absolutely average sixers team it will go down as a massive choke job and joe’s the A1 culprit

I’m curious. Why is the consensus that Boston is way better than Philly? We won 3 more games than them during the regular season and they have the league MVP and a 7 time all star who can get scorching hot and is very crafty and can get to the line. Maxey is also a solid young player. Boston is far deeper than them and therefore should be favored, but would it really be THAT much of an upset to lose?

Yeah, Philly is not an average team. They are a top 5 team in the league or thereabouts. My top five would be BOS, MIL, PHI, DEN, PHO not in that order.

BOS should win. They are better. But PHI are pretty good in their own right. BOS is about as tough a matchup for PHI due to their speed & quicknes and strong depth. PHI would look much better against most other top teams than they do against BOS.

It would certainly be an upset for BOS to lose but PHI are a very good team in their own right.

I think that's right.  Philly is a good team.  I worried that if we played the way we played against Atlanta they'd beat us.

The frustrating thing about this series isn't that it's 2-2, it's because we've lost two games we should have won due to bad coaching, bad effort and/or bad execution.

[johnnygreen]

I feel like fans are so used to seeing coaches call so many timeouts at the end of games, that they can't comprehend when one team doesn't follow the same routine. All of these out of timeout plays have been run in practice, so is there really any need to call a timeout to set it up?

It's not the coach, it's the lack of execution by the players. We are seeing the same issues pop up every year with this core, yet we're on the third different head coach. At some point, the blame has to be placed solely on the players.

I doubt all three head coaches are telling Jaylen Brown to defer to Tatum in the fourth, but are also fine with Smart taking all the big shots that Tatum passes up on.

The lack of timeout also precluded us from having our best offensive lineup out there. It was a failure by Joe

What? They had Tatum, Brown, Smart, White, and Horford. Who shouldn't have been on the floor?

[mobilija]

IF Boston loses this series to an absolutely average sixers team it will go down as a massive choke job and joe’s the A1 culprit

I’m curious. Why is the consensus that Boston is way better than Philly? We won 3 more games than them during the regular season and they have the league MVP and a 7 time all star who can get scorching hot and is very crafty and can get to the line. Maxey is also a solid young player. Boston is far deeper than them and therefore should be favored, but would it really be THAT much of an upset to lose?

Thank you for responding to this...I didn't have the effort. Philly is not average

[green_bballers13]

There's really no one to blame more than Ime.

Joe is 34 and wasn't ready to coach a contender. I'm not sure how many 34 year olds would have rejected the opportunity to become the interim coach of a contender.

Brad and the ownership team didn't want to bring in another distraction such as Vogel or Kenny Atkinson. The Ime news came out pretty late in the offseason (late September). Bringing in one of those guys would not have been seamless at that time.

Would Vogel or Atkinson be a better coach this year? Most likely. I just don't think it was an easy decision.

 I also don't think we know much about their decision making process. The Celtics were pretty quiet about the whole Ime situation.

[SparzWizard]

There's really no one to blame more than Ime.

Joe is 34 and wasn't ready to coach a contender. I'm not sure how many 34 year olds would have rejected the opportunity to become the interim coach of a contender.

Brad and the ownership team didn't want to bring in another distraction such as Vogel or Kenny Atkinson. The Ime news came out pretty late in the offseason (late September). Bringing in one of those guys would not have been seamless at that time.

Would Vogel or Atkinson be a better coach this year? Most likely. I just don't think it was an easy decision.

 I also don't think we know much about their decision making process. The Celtics were pretty quiet about the whole Ime situation.

Ime had his own issue, but the Celtics controlling the P/R was very questionable. They knew of it since July but waited until Sept to drop the news.

Brad should've brought in Atkinson, Snyder, or Vogel, no questions asked. Or even stalled and not given Mazzulla the head-coaching title yet cuz now we got Nick Nurse available.

[SparzWizard]

I feel like fans are so used to seeing coaches call so many timeouts at the end of games, that they can't comprehend when one team doesn't follow the same routine. All of these out of timeout plays have been run in practice, so is there really any need to call a timeout to set it up?

It's not the coach, it's the lack of execution by the players. We are seeing the same issues pop up every year with this core, yet we're on the third different head coach. At some point, the blame has to be placed solely on the players.

I doubt all three head coaches are telling Jaylen Brown to defer to Tatum in the fourth, but are also fine with Smart taking all the big shots that Tatum passes up on.

The lack of timeout also precluded us from having our best offensive lineup out there. It was a failure by Joe

What? They had Tatum, Brown, Smart, White, and Horford. Who shouldn't have been on the floor?

Smart would be the last person taking any last-second shot for this team. Should've put in Brogdon instead and Timelord to help grab offensive rebound or putback since it was a 1-point game.

[green_bballers13]

There's really no one to blame more than Ime.

Joe is 34 and wasn't ready to coach a contender. I'm not sure how many 34 year olds would have rejected the opportunity to become the interim coach of a contender.

Brad and the ownership team didn't want to bring in another distraction such as Vogel or Kenny Atkinson. The Ime news came out pretty late in the offseason (late September). Bringing in one of those guys would not have been seamless at that time.

Would Vogel or Atkinson be a better coach this year? Most likely. I just don't think it was an easy decision.

 I also don't think we know much about their decision making process. The Celtics were pretty quiet about the whole Ime situation.

Ime had his own issue, but the Celtics controlling the P/R was very questionable. They knew of it since July but waited until Sept to drop the news.

Brad should've brought in Atkinson, Snyder, or Vogel, no questions asked. Or even stalled and not given Mazzulla the head-coaching title yet cuz now we got Nick Nurse available.

I think the Celtics can still fire Joe for performance. I expect they will if they are unhappy with the results of this postseason.

Bud and Nurse will probably be available. I'm not certain that Milwaukee will hire Nurse, given his tendency to be hard on players. Their #1 priority is keeping Giannis happy.

[Roy H.]

There's really no one to blame more than Ime.

Joe is 34 and wasn't ready to coach a contender. I'm not sure how many 34 year olds would have rejected the opportunity to become the interim coach of a contender.

Brad and the ownership team didn't want to bring in another distraction such as Vogel or Kenny Atkinson. The Ime news came out pretty late in the offseason (late September). Bringing in one of those guys would not have been seamless at that time.

Would Vogel or Atkinson be a better coach this year? Most likely. I just don't think it was an easy decision.

 I also don't think we know much about their decision making process. The Celtics were pretty quiet about the whole Ime situation.

I think it's crazy that the Celtics knew about the Ime situation in July and didn't make any contingency plans at all until promoting Joe on the eve of training camp.  That's just poor management.  Not only did they drag their heels on the decision, but they also failed to replace Will Hardy with a competent assistant.  We lost our two best coaches, and essentially didn't replace them.