https://twitter.com/byjayking/status/1660699223476584450?s=46&t=lGU0TGXtwjkuVuoin6WTNwMalcolm Brogdon said the Heat have an identity. Brogdon said the Celtics haven’t found theirs. He thinks it should be defense.
More subtle shots at Joe.
https://twitter.com/realbobmanning/status/1660716095932694528?s=46&t=lGU0TGXtwjkuVuoin6WTNwMalcolm Brogdon gave an illuminating press conference today. Admits #Celtics got away with bad habits earlier in playoffs, relied on making shots all year and never reached the defensive consistency they needed to this year.
Publicly, Mazzulla & the team denied these issues.
EDIT: And some not so subtle shots at Joe, Brad, and this team as a whole. Ouch, Chad.
https://www.boston.com/sports/boston-celtics/2023/05/22/joe-mazzulla-nba-playoffs-heat-chad-finn-column/Unfortunately, this is not a movie, and this Celtics season, a once-promising mission to avenge last season’s Finals loss, is one inevitable loss from a miserable ending.
One of the many reasons why the Celtics are down 3-0 to the Heat: Their players, as shown through their recent words and pathetic actions, clearly do not believe their coach gives them a fighting chance.
It’s no excuse for why they turned into an entire roster of 2018 Kyrie Irvings and stopped fighting altogether in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals with the Miami Heat Sunday night.
But they are right. The quitters are right.
Mazzulla is the Peter McNeeley to Erik Spoelstra’s Mike Tyson. He doesn’t belong in this ring. He’s not ready for prime time. And in hindsight, he never should have been asked to be. The Celtics tried to develop a coach with a roster built to win now, and it backfired. No matter what other changes come in the offseason, they cannot allow themselves to be overmatched on the bench again.
So many mistakes have been made — by Mazzulla, by Brad Stevens, and by the players who were trusted to have a collective maturity that still remains absent.
Mazzulla’s tactical struggles — from burying Grant Williams to not going with double bigs until late in the previous series with the Sixers to the inability to take advantage of his roster depth (Sam Hauser made more than twice as many threes this year as Duncan Robinson) — are well-documented. It is telling that his players have had no qualms about publicly acknowledging his mistakes along the way.
It really does appear sometimes that Al Horford and Marcus Smart are more involved in running the huddle than Mazzulla is. That’s fine when it’s meant to give players some ownership. But it’s a bad look when they look like they’re doing the actual strategizing.
As for Stevens, he did a remarkable job building this roster, but he compounded his mistakes in deciding who would oversee it after Udoka’s suspension and eventual departure.
Why did Mazzulla get the job over Damon Stoudamire, whose status as an ex-player is something Jaylen Brown, to name one Celtic, previously acknowledged desiring in a coach? Why was a veteran assistant not added to the staff to aid a coach who had never led his own team at a level higher than NCAA Division 2? Did Stevens believe Mazzulla would be blunter with his players than he has been? They faced consequences for lackadaisical play under Udoka. There have been no consequences this season, which is one reason why the defensive effort has waned.
Topic: Fire Joe! ... or critique Joe ... or defend Joe... or worry about Joe's coaching (Read 735392 times)