So Joe...13 of our 14 losses came against teams above .500.
10 of our 14 losses came against elite teams in the NBA.
Unacceptable for this .700 team. They need to beat elite teams, not lose to them. Or else, the C's will look like the Hawks of 2015...#1 seed and just get swept in the postseason. Don't wanna look overrated.
This is a bit overboard. Yes, 13 of our 14 losses have come against teams over .500 (because they're the better teams), yet we still have by far the best record against .500 teams in the NBA.
Regarding losses to elite teams, I believe we are 7-8 against the top 4 seeds of both conferences, yet 5 of those 8 losses were in OT or close 1 to 2 possession games to end the game. It's not great, but with that context (along with the injuries we had in some of these losses) it's much more understandable. Good teams are closer to .500 against other elite teams, so this isn't far off from what is expected.
So we are 7-8 against the top 4 seeds in both conferences. I am not sure how that is a bad reflection on Mazzulla. There are other really good teams in the league, not just the Celtics. You don't expect to win on the road vs. DEN on a Thursday night. Of course, if we want to win the title, we need to do better than 7-8 vs. these teams. If we were to go 8-7, that is two series wins.
I am not sure what fans "expect" of this team. Are the Celtics "expected" to win the title? They are still the betting favorite but not that much different odds than DEN or LAC. Or is the expectation that they will compete for a title? They have the best record, but I feel the teams in the West may have a tougher schedule. This doesn't reflect in strength of schedule but teams like LAL, GSW, and even PHX are tougher wins (at least on many nights) than teams with comparable records in the East.
I will say that for me, I "expect" the Celtics to make the finals. They should win the East. The team will have to underperform and play below what I feel is the level that they should be expected to play, for them to not win the East. But I don't feel like I can "expect" them to beat DEN (for example) in the finals. I see two very evenly matched teams where if both teams play to their potential, it could go either way. The entire series could come down to a couple of shots or foul calls.
The bolded sentences are the issue, right? The most frustrating losses are when we blow leads, or play down to the level of our competition. The most concerning losses are those we drop to teams on our talent tier, or just below.
I am not sure there is an "issue" based purely on whether we are 7-8 or 8-7 or 9-6 vs. these teams in the regular season. I am also not sure that blowing a lead vs CLE means there is an issue, any more than beating GSW by 50 means we feel overly good.
I look at the 2 regular season games vs. DEN (for example) and I come away thinking that is going to be a really tough series if it comes to that. They are the defending champs and a really good team. We don't seem to have an answer for Jokic (nobody does really). But I feel like in a 7 game series, we would have a legit chance to win. Is this an "issue"?
Our end game execution is not always that great. But don't see that as the concern in the DEN games. Neither game necessarily had to come down to a last shot. There were plays that could have been made through the whole game that would have taken away the need to hit a big shot at the end to stay alive. I think the Celtics can win their share of last second shot games.
There is an element of chance to those games and they tend to even out. I believe that Tatum is plenty good enough to hit his share of those shots over time, as are some of our other top players. The sample size is small, in a relative sense, and not contiguous. It is just a few shots a season. We could play better, execute better at the end to increase our "chance" but we can also play better and execute better the whole game and that will have even more impact on our "chance". We have been pretty good on the "whole game" part of this for the most part.
Topic: Fire Joe! ... or critique Joe ... or defend Joe... or worry about Joe's coaching (Read 179306 times)