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

[tenn_smoothie]

Im chalking up game seven lineup madness to a psychotic break due to Tatum pulling a Kyrie. But regardless I feel Joe is going to take at least another year to reach a good coaching level. You can see his growth

I honestly feel like people are overreacting to the game 7 starting lineup (not saying you are in your comment). Those 3 played incredibly hard in the 4th quarter of game 6 and at least made it a little more respectable. I believe he was rewarding them for their effort, while showing the others (Queta and Hauser mostly) that their spots are not guaranteed.

It obviously didn't work in the short term, but that's because Philly came out on fire from 3 and we were left in a daze missing all of ours. But I do believe it helped Queta. He had his best game of the series in game 7. We also had every opportunity to win down the stretch and just decided to blow it per usual.

I'm not a huge proponent of Joe, but I don't think he lost that game for us. In fact, it was probably the game in which he made the most adjustments all season. Not just the starters, but going zone, using Hugo at Center to shift energy, and then riding the lineup in the 4th - especially Brown and White - that was getting us there.

But as you know, this isn't just about Game 7 vs Philly.
This is about Games 1 & 2 vs Knicks last season.
It's about losing to Miami in the playoffs in '23.
It's about his stubborn offensive scheme that he has no other options to go to when the 3's aren't falling. His answer is to keep jacking them up.

[Kernewek]

Im chalking up game seven lineup madness to a psychotic break due to Tatum pulling a Kyrie. But regardless I feel Joe is going to take at least another year to reach a good coaching level. You can see his growth

I honestly feel like people are overreacting to the game 7 starting lineup (not saying you are in your comment). Those 3 played incredibly hard in the 4th quarter of game 6 and at least made it a little more respectable. I believe he was rewarding them for their effort, while showing the others (Queta and Hauser mostly) that their spots are not guaranteed.

It obviously didn't work in the short term, but that's because Philly came out on fire from 3 and we were left in a daze missing all of ours. But I do believe it helped Queta. He had his best game of the series in game 7. We also had every opportunity to win down the stretch and just decided to blow it per usual.

I'm not a huge proponent of Joe, but I don't think he lost that game for us. In fact, it was probably the game in which he made the most adjustments all season. Not just the starters, but going zone, using Hugo at Center to shift energy, and then riding the lineup in the 4th - especially Brown and White - that was getting us there.

But I think that's the root of the problem - he's dogmatic in his ways to the point of harming his team. As the article I shared above highlights, he's stuck to his extreme three point philosophy all along, and it has absolutely screwed us three out of four years, with the only exception being the year we simply out-talented everyone else.

While this analytics approach may work out over the course of an 82 game season when the numbers will average out over time in terms of shot quality versus expected field goal percentage, as we saw this year and 2023 and 2024 that doesn't necessarily equate to the playoffs and the shorter seven game series where a short-term shooting variance can lose you a series.

If after four years he's not changed and is just as entrenched now as he was then, what makes anyone think he's going to change, especially given his extreme, eccentric personality and character that enjoys being the outsider and fringe guy?

This is correct, but I'm not sure it helps your point in the way that you mean it to - because the team still played the same way, just with better players. Players that we couldn't keep because of the CBA.


The blog post is, effectively, post-hoc nitpicking. You can do a much better job evaluating the series in question than a Marcus Smart quote and one late-game lineup decision in a series they won, for instance - this whole thread is an example of that.

Again, I don't think the coach is beyond critique or that all of the criticism is wrong, but a lot of it feels misplaced and misguided. The fluke loss to Miami can only be brought up so many times before you have to realise that - like the Rockets missing however many shots against the Warriors years ago - sometimes these things just happen, and there has to be a team on the 'wrong side of history' whenever a historic game happens.

[jpotter33]

Im chalking up game seven lineup madness to a psychotic break due to Tatum pulling a Kyrie. But regardless I feel Joe is going to take at least another year to reach a good coaching level. You can see his growth

I honestly feel like people are overreacting to the game 7 starting lineup (not saying you are in your comment). Those 3 played incredibly hard in the 4th quarter of game 6 and at least made it a little more respectable. I believe he was rewarding them for their effort, while showing the others (Queta and Hauser mostly) that their spots are not guaranteed.

It obviously didn't work in the short term, but that's because Philly came out on fire from 3 and we were left in a daze missing all of ours. But I do believe it helped Queta. He had his best game of the series in game 7. We also had every opportunity to win down the stretch and just decided to blow it per usual.

I'm not a huge proponent of Joe, but I don't think he lost that game for us. In fact, it was probably the game in which he made the most adjustments all season. Not just the starters, but going zone, using Hugo at Center to shift energy, and then riding the lineup in the 4th - especially Brown and White - that was getting us there.

But I think that's the root of the problem - he's dogmatic in his ways to the point of harming his team. As the article I shared above highlights, he's stuck to his extreme three point philosophy all along, and it has absolutely screwed us three out of four years, with the only exception being the year we simply out-talented everyone else.

While this analytics approach may work out over the course of an 82 game season when the numbers will average out over time in terms of shot quality versus expected field goal percentage, as we saw this year and 2023 and 2024 that doesn't necessarily equate to the playoffs and the shorter seven game series where a short-term shooting variance can lose you a series.

If after four years he's not changed and is just as entrenched now as he was then, what makes anyone think he's going to change, especially given his extreme, eccentric personality and character that enjoys being the outsider and fringe guy?

This is correct, but I'm not sure it helps your point in the way that you mean it to - because the team still played the same way, just with better players. Players that we couldn't keep because of the CBA.


The blog post is, effectively, post-hoc nitpicking. You can do a much better job evaluating the series in question than a Marcus Smart quote and one late-game lineup decision in a series they won, for instance - this whole thread is an example of that.

Again, I don't think the coach is beyond critique or that all of the criticism is wrong, but a lot of it feels misplaced and misguided. The fluke loss to Miami can only be brought up so many times before you have to realise that - like the Rockets missing however many shots against the Warriors years ago - sometimes these things just happen, and there has to be a team on the 'wrong side of history' whenever a historic game happens.

It stops being a ?fluke loss? when we put ourselves unnecessarily in a 0-3 hole, causing that issue in the first place where the randomness of a single game matters so greatly.

The ?fluke? and ?unlucky? argument also go out the window when for the second year in a row our same lack of adjustments killed us in the postseason and we shot ourselves to death. If the entire argument is - this style of play is totally realistic and a winning philosophy, but it requires a highly specific set and level of talent that is no longer feasible in the modern NBA financial structure - then I think you?ve already lost the plot from the get-go.

[Kernewek]

Im chalking up game seven lineup madness to a psychotic break due to Tatum pulling a Kyrie. But regardless I feel Joe is going to take at least another year to reach a good coaching level. You can see his growth

I honestly feel like people are overreacting to the game 7 starting lineup (not saying you are in your comment). Those 3 played incredibly hard in the 4th quarter of game 6 and at least made it a little more respectable. I believe he was rewarding them for their effort, while showing the others (Queta and Hauser mostly) that their spots are not guaranteed.

It obviously didn't work in the short term, but that's because Philly came out on fire from 3 and we were left in a daze missing all of ours. But I do believe it helped Queta. He had his best game of the series in game 7. We also had every opportunity to win down the stretch and just decided to blow it per usual.

I'm not a huge proponent of Joe, but I don't think he lost that game for us. In fact, it was probably the game in which he made the most adjustments all season. Not just the starters, but going zone, using Hugo at Center to shift energy, and then riding the lineup in the 4th - especially Brown and White - that was getting us there.

But I think that's the root of the problem - he's dogmatic in his ways to the point of harming his team. As the article I shared above highlights, he's stuck to his extreme three point philosophy all along, and it has absolutely screwed us three out of four years, with the only exception being the year we simply out-talented everyone else.

While this analytics approach may work out over the course of an 82 game season when the numbers will average out over time in terms of shot quality versus expected field goal percentage, as we saw this year and 2023 and 2024 that doesn't necessarily equate to the playoffs and the shorter seven game series where a short-term shooting variance can lose you a series.

If after four years he's not changed and is just as entrenched now as he was then, what makes anyone think he's going to change, especially given his extreme, eccentric personality and character that enjoys being the outsider and fringe guy?

This is correct, but I'm not sure it helps your point in the way that you mean it to - because the team still played the same way, just with better players. Players that we couldn't keep because of the CBA.


The blog post is, effectively, post-hoc nitpicking. You can do a much better job evaluating the series in question than a Marcus Smart quote and one late-game lineup decision in a series they won, for instance - this whole thread is an example of that.

Again, I don't think the coach is beyond critique or that all of the criticism is wrong, but a lot of it feels misplaced and misguided. The fluke loss to Miami can only be brought up so many times before you have to realise that - like the Rockets missing however many shots against the Warriors years ago - sometimes these things just happen, and there has to be a team on the 'wrong side of history' whenever a historic game happens.

It stops being a ?fluke loss? when we put ourselves unnecessarily in a 0-3 hole, causing that issue in the first place where the randomness of a single game matters so greatly.

The ?fluke? and ?unlucky? argument also go out the window when for the second year in a row our same lack of adjustments killed us in the postseason and we shot ourselves to death. If the entire argument is - this style of play is totally realistic and a winning philosophy, but it requires a highly specific set and level of talent that is no longer feasible in the modern NBA financial structure - then I think you?ve already lost the plot from the get-go.

But we didn't lose that game because of the 0-3 start to the series, so you're not describing a causal relationship in any real sense. In other words, your argument would be unchanged had Miami swept us that year, right?

Trying to strawman my argument isn't doing you any favours, by the way.

The argument is as follows (keeping it basic with nice round numbers).

If we can safely assume that talent (ability + team chemistry + overall team health) wins in the NBA, ninety times out of one-hundred. We can also presume that ply teams will strategise to maximise their talents, and the strengths & weaknesses of those strategies are generally borne out over the regular season and the post-season.

Through that lens, the Miami series in '23 is the 10% (or the 1% or the 0.1%, this doesn't really matter), and this season the team significantly overachieved vs. the talent on the roster. If coaching is the difference here, truly good coaches would be measurably more impactful on the regular season and on the series, rather than just one of a handful of secondary variables to talent, chemistry, and health (of which the coach can only really impact one).

Or, put even more simply: if any idiot on the street can figure this out, why can't Stevens? Why isn't he getting Mazzula the help he so obviously needs? Why hasn't Tenn Smoothie been hired as a consultant?

[Goldstar88]

Im chalking up game seven lineup madness to a psychotic break due to Tatum pulling a Kyrie. But regardless I feel Joe is going to take at least another year to reach a good coaching level. You can see his growth

I honestly feel like people are overreacting to the game 7 starting lineup (not saying you are in your comment). Those 3 played incredibly hard in the 4th quarter of game 6 and at least made it a little more respectable. I believe he was rewarding them for their effort, while showing the others (Queta and Hauser mostly) that their spots are not guaranteed.

It obviously didn't work in the short term, but that's because Philly came out on fire from 3 and we were left in a daze missing all of ours. But I do believe it helped Queta. He had his best game of the series in game 7. We also had every opportunity to win down the stretch and just decided to blow it per usual.

I'm not a huge proponent of Joe, but I don't think he lost that game for us. In fact, it was probably the game in which he made the most adjustments all season. Not just the starters, but going zone, using Hugo at Center to shift energy, and then riding the lineup in the 4th - especially Brown and White - that was getting us there.

But I think that's the root of the problem - he's dogmatic in his ways to the point of harming his team. As the article I shared above highlights, he's stuck to his extreme three point philosophy all along, and it has absolutely screwed us three out of four years, with the only exception being the year we simply out-talented everyone else.

While this analytics approach may work out over the course of an 82 game season when the numbers will average out over time in terms of shot quality versus expected field goal percentage, as we saw this year and 2023 and 2024 that doesn't necessarily equate to the playoffs and the shorter seven game series where a short-term shooting variance can lose you a series.

If after four years he's not changed and is just as entrenched now as he was then, what makes anyone think he's going to change, especially given his extreme, eccentric personality and character that enjoys being the outsider and fringe guy?

This is correct, but I'm not sure it helps your point in the way that you mean it to - because the team still played the same way, just with better players. Players that we couldn't keep because of the CBA.


The blog post is, effectively, post-hoc nitpicking. You can do a much better job evaluating the series in question than a Marcus Smart quote and one late-game lineup decision in a series they won, for instance - this whole thread is an example of that.

Again, I don't think the coach is beyond critique or that all of the criticism is wrong, but a lot of it feels misplaced and misguided. The fluke loss to Miami can only be brought up so many times before you have to realise that - like the Rockets missing however many shots against the Warriors years ago - sometimes these things just happen, and there has to be a team on the 'wrong side of history' whenever a historic game happens.

It stops being a ?fluke loss? when we put ourselves unnecessarily in a 0-3 hole, causing that issue in the first place where the randomness of a single game matters so greatly.

The ?fluke? and ?unlucky? argument also go out the window when for the second year in a row our same lack of adjustments killed us in the postseason and we shot ourselves to death. If the entire argument is - this style of play is totally realistic and a winning philosophy, but it requires a highly specific set and level of talent that is no longer feasible in the modern NBA financial structure - then I think you?ve already lost the plot from the get-go.

But we didn't lose that game because of the 0-3 start to the series, so you're not describing a causal relationship in any real sense. In other words, your argument would be unchanged had Miami swept us that year, right?

Trying to strawman my argument isn't doing you any favours, by the way.

The argument is as follows (keeping it basic with nice round numbers).

If we can safely assume that talent (ability + team chemistry + overall team health) wins in the NBA, ninety times out of one-hundred. We can also presume that ply teams will strategise to maximise their talents, and the strengths & weaknesses of those strategies are generally borne out over the regular season and the post-season.

Through that lens, the Miami series in '23 is the 10% (or the 1% or the 0.1%, this doesn't really matter), and this season the team significantly overachieved vs. the talent on the roster. If coaching is the difference here, truly good coaches would be measurably more impactful on the regular season and on the series, rather than just one of a handful of secondary variables to talent, chemistry, and health (of which the coach can only really impact one).

Or, put even more simply: if any idiot on the street can figure this out, why can't Stevens? Why isn't he getting Mazzula the help he so obviously needs? Why hasn't Tenn Smoothie been hired as a consultant?

Bingo.

[ozgod]

Im chalking up game seven lineup madness to a psychotic break due to Tatum pulling a Kyrie. But regardless I feel Joe is going to take at least another year to reach a good coaching level. You can see his growth

I honestly feel like people are overreacting to the game 7 starting lineup (not saying you are in your comment). Those 3 played incredibly hard in the 4th quarter of game 6 and at least made it a little more respectable. I believe he was rewarding them for their effort, while showing the others (Queta and Hauser mostly) that their spots are not guaranteed.

It obviously didn't work in the short term, but that's because Philly came out on fire from 3 and we were left in a daze missing all of ours. But I do believe it helped Queta. He had his best game of the series in game 7. We also had every opportunity to win down the stretch and just decided to blow it per usual.

I'm not a huge proponent of Joe, but I don't think he lost that game for us. In fact, it was probably the game in which he made the most adjustments all season. Not just the starters, but going zone, using Hugo at Center to shift energy, and then riding the lineup in the 4th - especially Brown and White - that was getting us there.

But I think that's the root of the problem - he's dogmatic in his ways to the point of harming his team. As the article I shared above highlights, he's stuck to his extreme three point philosophy all along, and it has absolutely screwed us three out of four years, with the only exception being the year we simply out-talented everyone else.

While this analytics approach may work out over the course of an 82 game season when the numbers will average out over time in terms of shot quality versus expected field goal percentage, as we saw this year and 2023 and 2024 that doesn't necessarily equate to the playoffs and the shorter seven game series where a short-term shooting variance can lose you a series.

If after four years he's not changed and is just as entrenched now as he was then, what makes anyone think he's going to change, especially given his extreme, eccentric personality and character that enjoys being the outsider and fringe guy?

This is correct, but I'm not sure it helps your point in the way that you mean it to - because the team still played the same way, just with better players. Players that we couldn't keep because of the CBA.


The blog post is, effectively, post-hoc nitpicking. You can do a much better job evaluating the series in question than a Marcus Smart quote and one late-game lineup decision in a series they won, for instance - this whole thread is an example of that.

Again, I don't think the coach is beyond critique or that all of the criticism is wrong, but a lot of it feels misplaced and misguided. The fluke loss to Miami can only be brought up so many times before you have to realise that - like the Rockets missing however many shots against the Warriors years ago - sometimes these things just happen, and there has to be a team on the 'wrong side of history' whenever a historic game happens.

It stops being a ?fluke loss? when we put ourselves unnecessarily in a 0-3 hole, causing that issue in the first place where the randomness of a single game matters so greatly.

The ?fluke? and ?unlucky? argument also go out the window when for the second year in a row our same lack of adjustments killed us in the postseason and we shot ourselves to death. If the entire argument is - this style of play is totally realistic and a winning philosophy, but it requires a highly specific set and level of talent that is no longer feasible in the modern NBA financial structure - then I think you?ve already lost the plot from the get-go.

But we didn't lose that game because of the 0-3 start to the series, so you're not describing a causal relationship in any real sense. In other words, your argument would be unchanged had Miami swept us that year, right?

Trying to strawman my argument isn't doing you any favours, by the way.

The argument is as follows (keeping it basic with nice round numbers).

If we can safely assume that talent (ability + team chemistry + overall team health) wins in the NBA, ninety times out of one-hundred. We can also presume that ply teams will strategise to maximise their talents, and the strengths & weaknesses of those strategies are generally borne out over the regular season and the post-season.

Through that lens, the Miami series in '23 is the 10% (or the 1% or the 0.1%, this doesn't really matter), and this season the team significantly overachieved vs. the talent on the roster. If coaching is the difference here, truly good coaches would be measurably more impactful on the regular season and on the series, rather than just one of a handful of secondary variables to talent, chemistry, and health (of which the coach can only really impact one).

Or, put even more simply: if any idiot on the street can figure this out, why can't Stevens? Why isn't he getting Mazzula the help he so obviously needs? Why hasn't Tenn Smoothie been hired as a consultant?

Come on we spend 2 hours every couple of nights watching them mess up, of course we know more than these overpaid clowns 

That's the beauty of online forums and social media though - everyone gets to be GM and even better, we don't have to have any skin in the game 

[angryguy77]

Im chalking up game seven lineup madness to a psychotic break due to Tatum pulling a Kyrie. But regardless I feel Joe is going to take at least another year to reach a good coaching level. You can see his growth

I honestly feel like people are overreacting to the game 7 starting lineup (not saying you are in your comment). Those 3 played incredibly hard in the 4th quarter of game 6 and at least made it a little more respectable. I believe he was rewarding them for their effort, while showing the others (Queta and Hauser mostly) that their spots are not guaranteed.

It obviously didn't work in the short term, but that's because Philly came out on fire from 3 and we were left in a daze missing all of ours. But I do believe it helped Queta. He had his best game of the series in game 7. We also had every opportunity to win down the stretch and just decided to blow it per usual.

I'm not a huge proponent of Joe, but I don't think he lost that game for us. In fact, it was probably the game in which he made the most adjustments all season. Not just the starters, but going zone, using Hugo at Center to shift energy, and then riding the lineup in the 4th - especially Brown and White - that was getting us there.

But I think that's the root of the problem - he's dogmatic in his ways to the point of harming his team. As the article I shared above highlights, he's stuck to his extreme three point philosophy all along, and it has absolutely screwed us three out of four years, with the only exception being the year we simply out-talented everyone else.

While this analytics approach may work out over the course of an 82 game season when the numbers will average out over time in terms of shot quality versus expected field goal percentage, as we saw this year and 2023 and 2024 that doesn't necessarily equate to the playoffs and the shorter seven game series where a short-term shooting variance can lose you a series.

If after four years he's not changed and is just as entrenched now as he was then, what makes anyone think he's going to change, especially given his extreme, eccentric personality and character that enjoys being the outsider and fringe guy?

This is correct, but I'm not sure it helps your point in the way that you mean it to - because the team still played the same way, just with better players. Players that we couldn't keep because of the CBA.


The blog post is, effectively, post-hoc nitpicking. You can do a much better job evaluating the series in question than a Marcus Smart quote and one late-game lineup decision in a series they won, for instance - this whole thread is an example of that.

Again, I don't think the coach is beyond critique or that all of the criticism is wrong, but a lot of it feels misplaced and misguided. The fluke loss to Miami can only be brought up so many times before you have to realise that - like the Rockets missing however many shots against the Warriors years ago - sometimes these things just happen, and there has to be a team on the 'wrong side of history' whenever a historic game happens.

It stops being a ?fluke loss? when we put ourselves unnecessarily in a 0-3 hole, causing that issue in the first place where the randomness of a single game matters so greatly.

The ?fluke? and ?unlucky? argument also go out the window when for the second year in a row our same lack of adjustments killed us in the postseason and we shot ourselves to death. If the entire argument is - this style of play is totally realistic and a winning philosophy, but it requires a highly specific set and level of talent that is no longer feasible in the modern NBA financial structure - then I think you?ve already lost the plot from the get-go.

But we didn't lose that game because of the 0-3 start to the series, so you're not describing a causal relationship in any real sense. In other words, your argument would be unchanged had Miami swept us that year, right?

Trying to strawman my argument isn't doing you any favours, by the way.

The argument is as follows (keeping it basic with nice round numbers).

If we can safely assume that talent (ability + team chemistry + overall team health) wins in the NBA, ninety times out of one-hundred. We can also presume that ply teams will strategise to maximise their talents, and the strengths & weaknesses of those strategies are generally borne out over the regular season and the post-season.

Through that lens, the Miami series in '23 is the 10% (or the 1% or the 0.1%, this doesn't really matter), and this season the team significantly overachieved vs. the talent on the roster. If coaching is the difference here, truly good coaches would be measurably more impactful on the regular season and on the series, rather than just one of a handful of secondary variables to talent, chemistry, and health (of which the coach can only really impact one).

Or, put even more simply: if any idiot on the street can figure this out, why can't Stevens? Why isn't he getting Mazzula the help he so obviously needs? Why hasn't Tenn Smoothie been hired as a consultant?

GM's make mistakes and they can be prisoner to ego and loyalty(Not saying brad is). His job is to make sure the org is put into the best position it can be to compete in the playoffs given the window we have.  It's been said a ton, but we have lost 3/4 years to teams we should've have lost to. The good will Joe had for winning a chip should be dead by now given how we went out the last 2 years.
No one is saying it's so simple to find the right guy, but it isn't hard to see what isn't working.

[Who]

I am middle of the road on Joe. I am not bothered if they fire him and replace him with someone else. I am not bothered if they keep him and try again.

That first year and the failures against Miami in the playoffs wrecked me. Took a long time to go around on Joe after that ... but winning a Championship goes a long way with me. I am willing to give him another season despite the disappointments against NY last year and Philly this year.

I found the NY one harder to take. This series against Philly was strange with Tatum coming back and with so many young role players and Vucevic not integrated properly. It is more understandtable. Disappointing but not inconceivable.

[Kernewek]

Im chalking up game seven lineup madness to a psychotic break due to Tatum pulling a Kyrie. But regardless I feel Joe is going to take at least another year to reach a good coaching level. You can see his growth

I honestly feel like people are overreacting to the game 7 starting lineup (not saying you are in your comment). Those 3 played incredibly hard in the 4th quarter of game 6 and at least made it a little more respectable. I believe he was rewarding them for their effort, while showing the others (Queta and Hauser mostly) that their spots are not guaranteed.

It obviously didn't work in the short term, but that's because Philly came out on fire from 3 and we were left in a daze missing all of ours. But I do believe it helped Queta. He had his best game of the series in game 7. We also had every opportunity to win down the stretch and just decided to blow it per usual.

I'm not a huge proponent of Joe, but I don't think he lost that game for us. In fact, it was probably the game in which he made the most adjustments all season. Not just the starters, but going zone, using Hugo at Center to shift energy, and then riding the lineup in the 4th - especially Brown and White - that was getting us there.

But I think that's the root of the problem - he's dogmatic in his ways to the point of harming his team. As the article I shared above highlights, he's stuck to his extreme three point philosophy all along, and it has absolutely screwed us three out of four years, with the only exception being the year we simply out-talented everyone else.

While this analytics approach may work out over the course of an 82 game season when the numbers will average out over time in terms of shot quality versus expected field goal percentage, as we saw this year and 2023 and 2024 that doesn't necessarily equate to the playoffs and the shorter seven game series where a short-term shooting variance can lose you a series.

If after four years he's not changed and is just as entrenched now as he was then, what makes anyone think he's going to change, especially given his extreme, eccentric personality and character that enjoys being the outsider and fringe guy?

This is correct, but I'm not sure it helps your point in the way that you mean it to - because the team still played the same way, just with better players. Players that we couldn't keep because of the CBA.


The blog post is, effectively, post-hoc nitpicking. You can do a much better job evaluating the series in question than a Marcus Smart quote and one late-game lineup decision in a series they won, for instance - this whole thread is an example of that.

Again, I don't think the coach is beyond critique or that all of the criticism is wrong, but a lot of it feels misplaced and misguided. The fluke loss to Miami can only be brought up so many times before you have to realise that - like the Rockets missing however many shots against the Warriors years ago - sometimes these things just happen, and there has to be a team on the 'wrong side of history' whenever a historic game happens.

It stops being a ?fluke loss? when we put ourselves unnecessarily in a 0-3 hole, causing that issue in the first place where the randomness of a single game matters so greatly.

The ?fluke? and ?unlucky? argument also go out the window when for the second year in a row our same lack of adjustments killed us in the postseason and we shot ourselves to death. If the entire argument is - this style of play is totally realistic and a winning philosophy, but it requires a highly specific set and level of talent that is no longer feasible in the modern NBA financial structure - then I think you?ve already lost the plot from the get-go.

But we didn't lose that game because of the 0-3 start to the series, so you're not describing a causal relationship in any real sense. In other words, your argument would be unchanged had Miami swept us that year, right?

Trying to strawman my argument isn't doing you any favours, by the way.

The argument is as follows (keeping it basic with nice round numbers).

If we can safely assume that talent (ability + team chemistry + overall team health) wins in the NBA, ninety times out of one-hundred. We can also presume that ply teams will strategise to maximise their talents, and the strengths & weaknesses of those strategies are generally borne out over the regular season and the post-season.

Through that lens, the Miami series in '23 is the 10% (or the 1% or the 0.1%, this doesn't really matter), and this season the team significantly overachieved vs. the talent on the roster. If coaching is the difference here, truly good coaches would be measurably more impactful on the regular season and on the series, rather than just one of a handful of secondary variables to talent, chemistry, and health (of which the coach can only really impact one).

Or, put even more simply: if any idiot on the street can figure this out, why can't Stevens? Why isn't he getting Mazzula the help he so obviously needs? Why hasn't Tenn Smoothie been hired as a consultant?

GM's make mistakes and they can be prisoner to ego and loyalty(Not saying brad is). His job is to make sure the org is put into the best position it can be to compete in the playoffs given the window we have.  It's been said a ton, but we have lost 3/4 years to teams we should've have lost to. The good will Joe had for winning a chip should be dead by now given how we went out the last 2 years.
No one is saying it's so simple to find the right guy, but it isn't hard to see what isn't working.

I agree - but, obviously, we are coming to different conclusions about what is and isn't working. I don't think the roster was much better than Philly - and I don't think that necessarily falls on the coaching or the offensive strategy, especially if we credit the coaching & the offensive strategy for our overperformance in the regular season, which makes this out so disappointing.

Not that losing sucks any less, because it always sucks. And it doesn't make the three point strategy any more fun to watch. But we should keep in mind that it's a bit more complicated than 'too many threes', or 'no adjustments', since that more or less ignores the somewhat sizeable fact that we had no real frontcourt and we lost to a team with a former MVP at center.

[Who]

I am reading The Athletic's player poll that was mentioned in the Sengun thread - where Sengun was voted the most overrated player in the league.

Well, it has a coaching question.

Which current coach, aside from your own, do you find the most impressive (2026 Poll)

Joe Mazzula finished #1 with 17.8% of the vote.

OKC coach finished 2nd (15.8%). DET coach 3rd (11%). Spo (8.9%). Ott in Phoenix 5th (6.8%). Mitch Johnson (San An? 6.2%). Charles Lee (5.5%). JJ Redick (4.8%). Will Hardy (3.4%).

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7253518/2026/05/06/anonymous-nba-player-poll-2026-overrated-underrated/

[aefgogreen]

[/quote]
 
GM's make mistakes and they can be prisoner to ego and loyalty(Not saying brad is). His job is to make sure the org is put into the best position it can be to compete in the playoffs given the window we have.  It's been said a ton, but we have lost 3/4 years to teams we should've have lost to. The good will Joe had for winning a chip should be dead by now given how we went out the last 2 years.
No one is saying it's so simple to find the right guy, but it isn't hard to see what isn't working.
[/quote]

This is going to be a test for Stevens.  He has to determine if Mazz is the best coach going forward. As you implied, he can't base it on past loyalty or even that he had a fantastic regular season. A championship and Coach Of The Year award mean nothing if they continue to underachieve in the future. Now I can't say for sure what the right choice is. But right now, I would fire Joe.

[slamtheking]

I am reading The Athletic's player poll that was mentioned in the Sengun thread - where Sengun was voted the most overrated player in the league.

Well, it has a coaching question.

Which current coach, aside from your own, do you find the most impressive (2026 Poll)

Joe Mazzula finished #1 with 17.8% of the vote.

OKC coach finished 2nd (15.8%). DET coach 3rd (11%). Spo (8.9%). Ott in Phoenix 5th (6.8%). Mitch Johnson (San An? 6.2%). Charles Lee (5.5%). JJ Redick (4.8%). Will Hardy (3.4%).

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7253518/2026/05/06/anonymous-nba-player-poll-2026-overrated-underrated/

guess the players would love to be encouraged to just chuck 3's all day and not be held accountable for lackadaisical play.  go figure

[DefenseWinsChamps]

I am reading The Athletic's player poll that was mentioned in the Sengun thread - where Sengun was voted the most overrated player in the league.

Well, it has a coaching question.

Which current coach, aside from your own, do you find the most impressive (2026 Poll)

Joe Mazzula finished #1 with 17.8% of the vote.

OKC coach finished 2nd (15.8%). DET coach 3rd (11%). Spo (8.9%). Ott in Phoenix 5th (6.8%). Mitch Johnson (San An? 6.2%). Charles Lee (5.5%). JJ Redick (4.8%). Will Hardy (3.4%).

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7253518/2026/05/06/anonymous-nba-player-poll-2026-overrated-underrated/

guess the players would love to be encouraged to just chuck 3's all day and not be held accountable for lackadaisical play.  go figure

Or, and I'm just spit-balling here, Celtic fans wildly underestimate Mazz as a coach.

[jpotter33]

While he didn?t directly say anything negative about Joe and did state we need to add to the team, Brad did clearly and directly state we didn?t generate enough good looks the past two postseasons and need to get to the rim. This is fairly contradictory to Joe, who has continued to maintain that we ?got good looks? and they just didn?t go in.

While they are aligned in many ways, I think people greatly overestimate the overlap in their style and underestimate how extreme Mazzulla Ball really is.

[ozgod]

I am reading The Athletic's player poll that was mentioned in the Sengun thread - where Sengun was voted the most overrated player in the league.

Well, it has a coaching question.

Which current coach, aside from your own, do you find the most impressive (2026 Poll)

Joe Mazzula finished #1 with 17.8% of the vote.

OKC coach finished 2nd (15.8%). DET coach 3rd (11%). Spo (8.9%). Ott in Phoenix 5th (6.8%). Mitch Johnson (San An? 6.2%). Charles Lee (5.5%). JJ Redick (4.8%). Will Hardy (3.4%).

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7253518/2026/05/06/anonymous-nba-player-poll-2026-overrated-underrated/

?A prophet is not without honor, except in his own country? - Matthew 13:57