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

[LatterDayCelticsfan]

I heard Doc Rivers is available.

Maybe Brad Stevens decides to run the front office and coachh the team at the same time?

[Kernewek]

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.

I mean, he said this, so I'm not sure it's as misaligned as you might suggest:

?I look at more of each shot individually, and my general feeling watching us play, in really each of the last two playoffs, in the second-round against New York, even against Orlando in the first round, was, we had a hard time generating really good looks on that first shot,? he said. ?So, we got to figure out a way to do better in that. And I think that that?s again, one of the things that we?ve got to figure out is how to have more of an impact at the rim. And I think we do need to add to our team to do that. Everybody plays a role in that. But, at the end of that game, Embiid is standing at the rim on all those possessions, or a lot of those possessions, right? And so I thought the shots we took, with the exception of Jaylen?s top-of-the-key-three and the one where you get in the middle of the lane, and then Payton?s open shot, I thought they were really well defended. I thought we struggled to get to where we wanted to go on offense a lot of the series, but it was particularly in those last four games, when those four perimeter defenders who are all very good, had Embiid standing behind them.?

And this:

?The biggest thing is: can we generate looks at the rim?? Stevens said. ?Yeah, everybody wants to do that, and every one of us would prefer a dunk over that, over a three. Every single one of us. Those are hard to get, and we struggle to generate them, and so, yeah, we certainly shot some bad ones. I?m not telling you we didn?t. There?s no question about that. But I also thought we shot some really hard shots at the rim, really hard shots in the midrange too, and I don?t necessarily fault anyone for that, other than credit to Philly?s defense, and we?ve got to do a good job as we build out the roster to have more options.?

As quoted by CB, emphasis mine (obviously).

Looks like CB uses the apostrophe the forum hates, but you get the idea.

[Vermont Green]

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.

I think Brad is right.  There are not enough layers to the offense.  There should be more off ball movement and screening.  Everyone is making a big deal of the 3PA, locally and nationally, but I think if BOS took 5 less 3PA per game or something, would people then be happy?  Probably not if they didn't go in.

I don't see it as a major revamp being needed, just do some different things around the edges.  Add a couple of wrinkles to the offense that are not there now.  Make it a little harder to defend us, make the defense think about a few more things.  This to me is what Brad is saying.

[Roy H.]

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.

I mean, he said this, so I'm not sure it's as misaligned as you might suggest:

?I look at more of each shot individually, and my general feeling watching us play, in really each of the last two playoffs, in the second-round against New York, even against Orlando in the first round, was, we had a hard time generating really good looks on that first shot,? he said. ?So, we got to figure out a way to do better in that. And I think that that?s again, one of the things that we?ve got to figure out is how to have more of an impact at the rim. And I think we do need to add to our team to do that. Everybody plays a role in that. But, at the end of that game, Embiid is standing at the rim on all those possessions, or a lot of those possessions, right? And so I thought the shots we took, with the exception of Jaylen?s top-of-the-key-three and the one where you get in the middle of the lane, and then Payton?s open shot, I thought they were really well defended. I thought we struggled to get to where we wanted to go on offense a lot of the series, but it was particularly in those last four games, when those four perimeter defenders who are all very good, had Embiid standing behind them.?

And this:

?The biggest thing is: can we generate looks at the rim?? Stevens said. ?Yeah, everybody wants to do that, and every one of us would prefer a dunk over that, over a three. Every single one of us. Those are hard to get, and we struggle to generate them, and so, yeah, we certainly shot some bad ones. I?m not telling you we didn?t. There?s no question about that. But I also thought we shot some really hard shots at the rim, really hard shots in the midrange too, and I don?t necessarily fault anyone for that, other than credit to Philly?s defense, and we?ve got to do a good job as we build out the roster to have more options.?

As quoted by CB, emphasis mine (obviously).

Looks like CB uses the apostrophe the forum hates, but you get the idea.

The thing that is unknowable for fans is whether Joe is emphasizing attacking the rim as being a better option than firing up wild threes.  Joe doesn't really say much of interest in his press conferences, so we don't know.

But, JB and JT certainly both have the skillset to attack the rim.  Is Joe emphasizing this?  Is he emphasizing cutting to the basket?  Is he emphasizing that ball handlers need to be hitting cutters, rather than passing along the perimeter?

I'm sure you've seen replays of us being down by 1, with Queta cutting wide open to the basket in the 4th quarter which would have given us the lead.  Instead, we passed around the perimeter for a missed three pointer.  I think that anybody there would say the better option is to take the wide open layup.  But, are the coaches doing the film study to better help guys recognize those opportunities.

One of the dumber things Joe said back in 2023 was that he didn't emphasize defense, because he assumed the guys knew it was important.  Is this another one of those "I don't tell the guys to cut to the basket / look for open layups" because it's obvious?  Because, that's not how sports work.  If the emphasis is "there's no such thing as a bad three pointer" (which Joe's track record suggests is what is being communicated) then of course the emphasis is one threes.

I mean, how many times has there been an end of game situation where we're down by one, and guys shoot a three?  At some point, they need to be told that there's a 35% chance of that basket going in, versus a 50% chance of a two-pointer.  For a guy who values analytics, those situations are a big blindspot.

[Kernewek]

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.

I mean, he said this, so I'm not sure it's as misaligned as you might suggest:

?I look at more of each shot individually, and my general feeling watching us play, in really each of the last two playoffs, in the second-round against New York, even against Orlando in the first round, was, we had a hard time generating really good looks on that first shot,? he said. ?So, we got to figure out a way to do better in that. And I think that that?s again, one of the things that we?ve got to figure out is how to have more of an impact at the rim. And I think we do need to add to our team to do that. Everybody plays a role in that. But, at the end of that game, Embiid is standing at the rim on all those possessions, or a lot of those possessions, right? And so I thought the shots we took, with the exception of Jaylen?s top-of-the-key-three and the one where you get in the middle of the lane, and then Payton?s open shot, I thought they were really well defended. I thought we struggled to get to where we wanted to go on offense a lot of the series, but it was particularly in those last four games, when those four perimeter defenders who are all very good, had Embiid standing behind them.?

And this:

?The biggest thing is: can we generate looks at the rim?? Stevens said. ?Yeah, everybody wants to do that, and every one of us would prefer a dunk over that, over a three. Every single one of us. Those are hard to get, and we struggle to generate them, and so, yeah, we certainly shot some bad ones. I?m not telling you we didn?t. There?s no question about that. But I also thought we shot some really hard shots at the rim, really hard shots in the midrange too, and I don?t necessarily fault anyone for that, other than credit to Philly?s defense, and we?ve got to do a good job as we build out the roster to have more options.?

As quoted by CB, emphasis mine (obviously).

Looks like CB uses the apostrophe the forum hates, but you get the idea.

The thing that is unknowable for fans is whether Joe is emphasizing attacking the rim as being a better option than firing up wild threes.  Joe doesn't really say much of interest in his press conferences, so we don't know.

But, JB and JT certainly both have the skillset to attack the rim.  Is Joe emphasizing this?  Is he emphasizing cutting to the basket?  Is he emphasizing that ball handlers need to be hitting cutters, rather than passing along the perimeter?

I'm sure you've seen replays of us being down by 1, with Queta cutting wide open to the basket in the 4th quarter which would have given us the lead.  Instead, we passed around the perimeter for a missed three pointer.  I think that anybody there would say the better option is to take the wide open layup.  But, are the coaches doing the film study to better help guys recognize those opportunities.

One of the dumber things Joe said back in 2023 was that he didn't emphasize defense, because he assumed the guys knew it was important.  Is this another one of those "I don't tell the guys to cut to the basket / look for open layups" because it's obvious?  Because, that's not how sports work.  If the emphasis is "there's no such thing as a bad three pointer" (which Joe's track record suggests is what is being communicated) then of course the emphasis is one threes.

I mean, how many times has there been an end of game situation where we're down by one, and guys shoot a three?  At some point, they need to be told that there's a 35% chance of that basket going in, versus a 50% chance of a two-pointer.  For a guy who values analytics, those situations are a big blindspot.

But what you've done, basically, is proclaim that there is an answer beyond our reach and concoct a string of leading questions that would suggest that there is, in fact, an answer to the question within our reach. So which is it?

To the Queta point, which is probably the toughest one 'emotionally', beyond the fact that we're not discussing it if Pritchard doesn't miss the shot (obviously), Brown himself has explained why he made the pass that he did, so we don't need to speculate about what the coaching staff may or may not have emphasised over the year - and, further, we know that the guy who made the pass doesn't think that the better option was to try for the wide-open layup, because Embiid is right there (paraphrasing):
https://www.instagram.com/p/DX5gvF5EYj4/ (second slide, if the link doesn't work)

I said this in one of the concurrent threads, but the C's offense is looking for the best shot available - so you can say a wide open Pritchard is an example of 'a wild three' and the Queta pass (which Brown clearly has reservations about making) is 'the obvious choice', but I'm not sure it's that simple on the floor and I think the player's statement bears it out.

(which is different, obviously, than whether or not Brown should have been able to make that pass and feel comfortable doing it, but that's not necessarily on the coaching)

[Roy H.]

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.

I mean, he said this, so I'm not sure it's as misaligned as you might suggest:

?I look at more of each shot individually, and my general feeling watching us play, in really each of the last two playoffs, in the second-round against New York, even against Orlando in the first round, was, we had a hard time generating really good looks on that first shot,? he said. ?So, we got to figure out a way to do better in that. And I think that that?s again, one of the things that we?ve got to figure out is how to have more of an impact at the rim. And I think we do need to add to our team to do that. Everybody plays a role in that. But, at the end of that game, Embiid is standing at the rim on all those possessions, or a lot of those possessions, right? And so I thought the shots we took, with the exception of Jaylen?s top-of-the-key-three and the one where you get in the middle of the lane, and then Payton?s open shot, I thought they were really well defended. I thought we struggled to get to where we wanted to go on offense a lot of the series, but it was particularly in those last four games, when those four perimeter defenders who are all very good, had Embiid standing behind them.?

And this:

?The biggest thing is: can we generate looks at the rim?? Stevens said. ?Yeah, everybody wants to do that, and every one of us would prefer a dunk over that, over a three. Every single one of us. Those are hard to get, and we struggle to generate them, and so, yeah, we certainly shot some bad ones. I?m not telling you we didn?t. There?s no question about that. But I also thought we shot some really hard shots at the rim, really hard shots in the midrange too, and I don?t necessarily fault anyone for that, other than credit to Philly?s defense, and we?ve got to do a good job as we build out the roster to have more options.?

As quoted by CB, emphasis mine (obviously).

Looks like CB uses the apostrophe the forum hates, but you get the idea.

The thing that is unknowable for fans is whether Joe is emphasizing attacking the rim as being a better option than firing up wild threes.  Joe doesn't really say much of interest in his press conferences, so we don't know.

But, JB and JT certainly both have the skillset to attack the rim.  Is Joe emphasizing this?  Is he emphasizing cutting to the basket?  Is he emphasizing that ball handlers need to be hitting cutters, rather than passing along the perimeter?

I'm sure you've seen replays of us being down by 1, with Queta cutting wide open to the basket in the 4th quarter which would have given us the lead.  Instead, we passed around the perimeter for a missed three pointer.  I think that anybody there would say the better option is to take the wide open layup.  But, are the coaches doing the film study to better help guys recognize those opportunities.

One of the dumber things Joe said back in 2023 was that he didn't emphasize defense, because he assumed the guys knew it was important.  Is this another one of those "I don't tell the guys to cut to the basket / look for open layups" because it's obvious?  Because, that's not how sports work.  If the emphasis is "there's no such thing as a bad three pointer" (which Joe's track record suggests is what is being communicated) then of course the emphasis is one threes.

I mean, how many times has there been an end of game situation where we're down by one, and guys shoot a three?  At some point, they need to be told that there's a 35% chance of that basket going in, versus a 50% chance of a two-pointer.  For a guy who values analytics, those situations are a big blindspot.

But what you've done, basically, is proclaim that there is an answer beyond our reach and concoct a string of leading questions that would suggest that there is, in fact, an answer to the question within our reach. So which is it?

To the Queta point, which is probably the toughest one 'emotionally', beyond the fact that we're not discussing it if Pritchard doesn't miss the shot (obviously), Brown himself has explained why he made the pass that he did, so we don't need to speculate about what the coaching staff may or may not have emphasised over the year - and, further, we know that the guy who made the pass doesn't think that the better option was to try for the wide-open layup, because Embiid is right there (paraphrasing):
https://www.instagram.com/p/DX5gvF5EYj4/ (second slide, if the link doesn't work)

I said this in one of the concurrent threads, but the C's offense is looking for the best shot available - so you can say a wide open Pritchard is an example of 'a wild three' and the Queta pass (which Brown clearly has reservations about making) is 'the obvious choice', but I'm not sure it's that simple on the floor and I think the player's statement bears it out.

(which is different, obviously, than whether or not Brown should have been able to make that pass and feel comfortable doing it, but that's not necessarily on the coaching)

I stand corrected.  It *is* knowable.  Jaylen has been mis-coached by Joe so much that he no longer recognizes that an uncontested layup is a better shot than an open three pointer. 

Joe's beloved analytics show us that Pritchard shot 33.2% on threes when open (closest defender between 4 and 6 feet away), with White being the only worse rotation player.  He's sub 26% when being covered within 4 feet.

JB needs to be coached that a streaking Queta will score there way more than 33.2% less of the time, whether it be on a layup, dunk, or foul.  Brown proudly says that he's making that pass "100 times out of 100".  His coach needs to correct him, because that's just terrible basketball.

[slamtheking]

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.

I mean, he said this, so I'm not sure it's as misaligned as you might suggest:

?I look at more of each shot individually, and my general feeling watching us play, in really each of the last two playoffs, in the second-round against New York, even against Orlando in the first round, was, we had a hard time generating really good looks on that first shot,? he said. ?So, we got to figure out a way to do better in that. And I think that that?s again, one of the things that we?ve got to figure out is how to have more of an impact at the rim. And I think we do need to add to our team to do that. Everybody plays a role in that. But, at the end of that game, Embiid is standing at the rim on all those possessions, or a lot of those possessions, right? And so I thought the shots we took, with the exception of Jaylen?s top-of-the-key-three and the one where you get in the middle of the lane, and then Payton?s open shot, I thought they were really well defended. I thought we struggled to get to where we wanted to go on offense a lot of the series, but it was particularly in those last four games, when those four perimeter defenders who are all very good, had Embiid standing behind them.?

And this:

?The biggest thing is: can we generate looks at the rim?? Stevens said. ?Yeah, everybody wants to do that, and every one of us would prefer a dunk over that, over a three. Every single one of us. Those are hard to get, and we struggle to generate them, and so, yeah, we certainly shot some bad ones. I?m not telling you we didn?t. There?s no question about that. But I also thought we shot some really hard shots at the rim, really hard shots in the midrange too, and I don?t necessarily fault anyone for that, other than credit to Philly?s defense, and we?ve got to do a good job as we build out the roster to have more options.?

As quoted by CB, emphasis mine (obviously).

Looks like CB uses the apostrophe the forum hates, but you get the idea.

The thing that is unknowable for fans is whether Joe is emphasizing attacking the rim as being a better option than firing up wild threes.  Joe doesn't really say much of interest in his press conferences, so we don't know.

But, JB and JT certainly both have the skillset to attack the rim.  Is Joe emphasizing this?  Is he emphasizing cutting to the basket?  Is he emphasizing that ball handlers need to be hitting cutters, rather than passing along the perimeter?

I'm sure you've seen replays of us being down by 1, with Queta cutting wide open to the basket in the 4th quarter which would have given us the lead.  Instead, we passed around the perimeter for a missed three pointer.  I think that anybody there would say the better option is to take the wide open layup.  But, are the coaches doing the film study to better help guys recognize those opportunities.

One of the dumber things Joe said back in 2023 was that he didn't emphasize defense, because he assumed the guys knew it was important.  Is this another one of those "I don't tell the guys to cut to the basket / look for open layups" because it's obvious?  Because, that's not how sports work.  If the emphasis is "there's no such thing as a bad three pointer" (which Joe's track record suggests is what is being communicated) then of course the emphasis is one threes.

I mean, how many times has there been an end of game situation where we're down by one, and guys shoot a three?  At some point, they need to be told that there's a 35% chance of that basket going in, versus a 50% chance of a two-pointer.  For a guy who values analytics, those situations are a big blindspot.

But what you've done, basically, is proclaim that there is an answer beyond our reach and concoct a string of leading questions that would suggest that there is, in fact, an answer to the question within our reach. So which is it?

To the Queta point, which is probably the toughest one 'emotionally', beyond the fact that we're not discussing it if Pritchard doesn't miss the shot (obviously), Brown himself has explained why he made the pass that he did, so we don't need to speculate about what the coaching staff may or may not have emphasised over the year - and, further, we know that the guy who made the pass doesn't think that the better option was to try for the wide-open layup, because Embiid is right there (paraphrasing):
https://www.instagram.com/p/DX5gvF5EYj4/ (second slide, if the link doesn't work)

I said this in one of the concurrent threads, but the C's offense is looking for the best shot available - so you can say a wide open Pritchard is an example of 'a wild three' and the Queta pass (which Brown clearly has reservations about making) is 'the obvious choice', but I'm not sure it's that simple on the floor and I think the player's statement bears it out.

(which is different, obviously, than whether or not Brown should have been able to make that pass and feel comfortable doing it, but that's not necessarily on the coaching)

I stand corrected.  It *is* knowable.  Jaylen has been mis-coached by Joe so much that he no longer recognizes that an uncontested layup is a better shot than an open three pointer. 

Joe's beloved analytics show us that Pritchard shot 33.2% on threes when open (closest defender between 4 and 6 feet away), with White being the only worse rotation player.  He's sub 26% when being covered within 4 feet.

JB needs to be coached that a streaking Queta will score there way more than 33.2% less of the time, whether it be on a layup, dunk, or foul.  Brown proudly says that he's making that pass "100 times out of 100".  His coach needs to correct him, because that's just terrible basketball.

agree 100%.  I'd add that if JB doesn't feel comfortable or able to make that pass to Q, he shouldn't be the one with the ball in his hands leading a fastbreak

[Who]

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.

I think Brad is right.  There are not enough layers to the offense.  There should be more off ball movement and screening.  Everyone is making a big deal of the 3PA, locally and nationally, but I think if BOS took 5 less 3PA per game or something, would people then be happy?  Probably not if they didn't go in.

I don't see it as a major revamp being needed, just do some different things around the edges.  Add a couple of wrinkles to the offense that are not there now.  Make it a little harder to defend us, make the defense think about a few more things.  This to me is what Brad is saying.

Vucevic can offer that. His midrange offense, high post passing and post scoring can offer more variety to our offense.

I still like the balance of Jaylen and Tatum as a 25ppg scorers and then having 3 15ppg scorers in D White, Pritchard and Vucevic. That is 95ppg before you get to the rest of the supporting cast.

[Who]

I mean, how many times has there been an end of game situation where we're down by one, and guys shoot a three?  At some point, they need to be told that there's a 35% chance of that basket going in, versus a 50% chance of a two-pointer.  For a guy who values analytics, those situations are a big blindspot.

It feels like the whole league does that.

It drives me nuts.

[Who]

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.

I mean, he said this, so I'm not sure it's as misaligned as you might suggest:

?I look at more of each shot individually, and my general feeling watching us play, in really each of the last two playoffs, in the second-round against New York, even against Orlando in the first round, was, we had a hard time generating really good looks on that first shot,? he said. ?So, we got to figure out a way to do better in that. And I think that that?s again, one of the things that we?ve got to figure out is how to have more of an impact at the rim. And I think we do need to add to our team to do that. Everybody plays a role in that. But, at the end of that game, Embiid is standing at the rim on all those possessions, or a lot of those possessions, right? And so I thought the shots we took, with the exception of Jaylen?s top-of-the-key-three and the one where you get in the middle of the lane, and then Payton?s open shot, I thought they were really well defended. I thought we struggled to get to where we wanted to go on offense a lot of the series, but it was particularly in those last four games, when those four perimeter defenders who are all very good, had Embiid standing behind them.?

And this:

?The biggest thing is: can we generate looks at the rim?? Stevens said. ?Yeah, everybody wants to do that, and every one of us would prefer a dunk over that, over a three. Every single one of us. Those are hard to get, and we struggle to generate them, and so, yeah, we certainly shot some bad ones. I?m not telling you we didn?t. There?s no question about that. But I also thought we shot some really hard shots at the rim, really hard shots in the midrange too, and I don?t necessarily fault anyone for that, other than credit to Philly?s defense, and we?ve got to do a good job as we build out the roster to have more options.?

As quoted by CB, emphasis mine (obviously).

Looks like CB uses the apostrophe the forum hates, but you get the idea.

This seems more of a personnel issue than a coaching issue.

I mean who is creating the inside shots? Queta is a basic rim runner. The guards are not speedy slashers who attack the rim. Both Pritchard and D White prefer to stand at the 3 point line and fire away. Neither provide high level or even above average dribble penetration.

That leaves Jaylen & Tatum as the only consistent driving paint finishing threats on the team. Even then, Tatum takes a heck of a lot of 3s and Jaylen takes a heck of a lot of midrangers. Neither guy is as dominant taking the ball to the bucket as some of the other top tier stars in the league. Neither are top tier athletes. Jaylen has slowed down some. Both are good athletes but neither are top level explosive athletes.

It is a jump-shooting team. You would have to make large scale changes to alter that.

[Kernewek]

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.

I mean, he said this, so I'm not sure it's as misaligned as you might suggest:

?I look at more of each shot individually, and my general feeling watching us play, in really each of the last two playoffs, in the second-round against New York, even against Orlando in the first round, was, we had a hard time generating really good looks on that first shot,? he said. ?So, we got to figure out a way to do better in that. And I think that that?s again, one of the things that we?ve got to figure out is how to have more of an impact at the rim. And I think we do need to add to our team to do that. Everybody plays a role in that. But, at the end of that game, Embiid is standing at the rim on all those possessions, or a lot of those possessions, right? And so I thought the shots we took, with the exception of Jaylen?s top-of-the-key-three and the one where you get in the middle of the lane, and then Payton?s open shot, I thought they were really well defended. I thought we struggled to get to where we wanted to go on offense a lot of the series, but it was particularly in those last four games, when those four perimeter defenders who are all very good, had Embiid standing behind them.?

And this:

?The biggest thing is: can we generate looks at the rim?? Stevens said. ?Yeah, everybody wants to do that, and every one of us would prefer a dunk over that, over a three. Every single one of us. Those are hard to get, and we struggle to generate them, and so, yeah, we certainly shot some bad ones. I?m not telling you we didn?t. There?s no question about that. But I also thought we shot some really hard shots at the rim, really hard shots in the midrange too, and I don?t necessarily fault anyone for that, other than credit to Philly?s defense, and we?ve got to do a good job as we build out the roster to have more options.?

As quoted by CB, emphasis mine (obviously).

Looks like CB uses the apostrophe the forum hates, but you get the idea.

The thing that is unknowable for fans is whether Joe is emphasizing attacking the rim as being a better option than firing up wild threes.  Joe doesn't really say much of interest in his press conferences, so we don't know.

But, JB and JT certainly both have the skillset to attack the rim.  Is Joe emphasizing this?  Is he emphasizing cutting to the basket?  Is he emphasizing that ball handlers need to be hitting cutters, rather than passing along the perimeter?

I'm sure you've seen replays of us being down by 1, with Queta cutting wide open to the basket in the 4th quarter which would have given us the lead.  Instead, we passed around the perimeter for a missed three pointer.  I think that anybody there would say the better option is to take the wide open layup.  But, are the coaches doing the film study to better help guys recognize those opportunities.

One of the dumber things Joe said back in 2023 was that he didn't emphasize defense, because he assumed the guys knew it was important.  Is this another one of those "I don't tell the guys to cut to the basket / look for open layups" because it's obvious?  Because, that's not how sports work.  If the emphasis is "there's no such thing as a bad three pointer" (which Joe's track record suggests is what is being communicated) then of course the emphasis is one threes.

I mean, how many times has there been an end of game situation where we're down by one, and guys shoot a three?  At some point, they need to be told that there's a 35% chance of that basket going in, versus a 50% chance of a two-pointer.  For a guy who values analytics, those situations are a big blindspot.

But what you've done, basically, is proclaim that there is an answer beyond our reach and concoct a string of leading questions that would suggest that there is, in fact, an answer to the question within our reach. So which is it?

To the Queta point, which is probably the toughest one 'emotionally', beyond the fact that we're not discussing it if Pritchard doesn't miss the shot (obviously), Brown himself has explained why he made the pass that he did, so we don't need to speculate about what the coaching staff may or may not have emphasised over the year - and, further, we know that the guy who made the pass doesn't think that the better option was to try for the wide-open layup, because Embiid is right there (paraphrasing):
https://www.instagram.com/p/DX5gvF5EYj4/ (second slide, if the link doesn't work)

I said this in one of the concurrent threads, but the C's offense is looking for the best shot available - so you can say a wide open Pritchard is an example of 'a wild three' and the Queta pass (which Brown clearly has reservations about making) is 'the obvious choice', but I'm not sure it's that simple on the floor and I think the player's statement bears it out.

(which is different, obviously, than whether or not Brown should have been able to make that pass and feel comfortable doing it, but that's not necessarily on the coaching)

I stand corrected.  It *is* knowable.  Jaylen has been mis-coached by Joe so much that he no longer recognizes that an uncontested layup is a better shot than an open three pointer. 

Joe's beloved analytics show us that Pritchard shot 33.2% on threes when open (closest defender between 4 and 6 feet away), with White being the only worse rotation player.  He's sub 26% when being covered within 4 feet.

JB needs to be coached that a streaking Queta will score there way more than 33.2% less of the time, whether it be on a layup, dunk, or foul.  Brown proudly says that he's making that pass "100 times out of 100".  His coach needs to correct him, because that's just terrible basketball.

Emotional language aside, you could also look at the same analytics and see that Pritchard was 49% from the corners  - but that's neither here nor there, as you're clearly being reductive for the sake of the argument. I will say, again, (and have bolded for emphasis) the fact that Brown clearly didn't feel he could make that pass isn't necessarily on the coaching staff.

Does Chris Paul make that pass? Of course.

Is Jaylen Brown Chris Paul? Of course not.

Is that Joe's fault? I'm not as quick to assign blame as you are.

[Who]

I will say, again, (and have bolded for emphasis) the fact that Brown clearly didn't feel he could make that pass isn't necessarily on the coaching staff.

Does Chris Paul make that pass? Of course.

Is Jaylen Brown Chris Paul? Of course not.

Is that Joe's fault? I'm not as quick to assign blame as you are.

Agreed. Nothing to do with the coaching staff. It was a bad decision by a limited passer. All to do with the player.

[Kernewek]

I will say, again, (and have bolded for emphasis) the fact that Brown clearly didn't feel he could make that pass isn't necessarily on the coaching staff.

Does Chris Paul make that pass? Of course.

Is Jaylen Brown Chris Paul? Of course not.

Is that Joe's fault? I'm not as quick to assign blame as you are.

Agreed. Nothing to do with the coaching staff. It was a bad decision by a limited passer. All to do with the player.

Who I should say you've had a bunch of good posts that I tend to agree with in the last few pages - particularly in agreement with you re: jump-shooting team, as well, just not replying to every post.

And it's not as if Joe doesn't have flaws, I just don't think that the team is particularly damaged by the emphasis on the three in particular, because I don't think the three-ball endemic (there's a good thinking basketball video on this that came out last Jan for anyone with 20 minutes to kill about the evolution of the three which is good here) changes much with a change in coaching staff.

[Roy H.]

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.

I mean, he said this, so I'm not sure it's as misaligned as you might suggest:

?I look at more of each shot individually, and my general feeling watching us play, in really each of the last two playoffs, in the second-round against New York, even against Orlando in the first round, was, we had a hard time generating really good looks on that first shot,? he said. ?So, we got to figure out a way to do better in that. And I think that that?s again, one of the things that we?ve got to figure out is how to have more of an impact at the rim. And I think we do need to add to our team to do that. Everybody plays a role in that. But, at the end of that game, Embiid is standing at the rim on all those possessions, or a lot of those possessions, right? And so I thought the shots we took, with the exception of Jaylen?s top-of-the-key-three and the one where you get in the middle of the lane, and then Payton?s open shot, I thought they were really well defended. I thought we struggled to get to where we wanted to go on offense a lot of the series, but it was particularly in those last four games, when those four perimeter defenders who are all very good, had Embiid standing behind them.?

And this:

?The biggest thing is: can we generate looks at the rim?? Stevens said. ?Yeah, everybody wants to do that, and every one of us would prefer a dunk over that, over a three. Every single one of us. Those are hard to get, and we struggle to generate them, and so, yeah, we certainly shot some bad ones. I?m not telling you we didn?t. There?s no question about that. But I also thought we shot some really hard shots at the rim, really hard shots in the midrange too, and I don?t necessarily fault anyone for that, other than credit to Philly?s defense, and we?ve got to do a good job as we build out the roster to have more options.?

As quoted by CB, emphasis mine (obviously).

Looks like CB uses the apostrophe the forum hates, but you get the idea.

The thing that is unknowable for fans is whether Joe is emphasizing attacking the rim as being a better option than firing up wild threes.  Joe doesn't really say much of interest in his press conferences, so we don't know.

But, JB and JT certainly both have the skillset to attack the rim.  Is Joe emphasizing this?  Is he emphasizing cutting to the basket?  Is he emphasizing that ball handlers need to be hitting cutters, rather than passing along the perimeter?

I'm sure you've seen replays of us being down by 1, with Queta cutting wide open to the basket in the 4th quarter which would have given us the lead.  Instead, we passed around the perimeter for a missed three pointer.  I think that anybody there would say the better option is to take the wide open layup.  But, are the coaches doing the film study to better help guys recognize those opportunities.

One of the dumber things Joe said back in 2023 was that he didn't emphasize defense, because he assumed the guys knew it was important.  Is this another one of those "I don't tell the guys to cut to the basket / look for open layups" because it's obvious?  Because, that's not how sports work.  If the emphasis is "there's no such thing as a bad three pointer" (which Joe's track record suggests is what is being communicated) then of course the emphasis is one threes.

I mean, how many times has there been an end of game situation where we're down by one, and guys shoot a three?  At some point, they need to be told that there's a 35% chance of that basket going in, versus a 50% chance of a two-pointer.  For a guy who values analytics, those situations are a big blindspot.

But what you've done, basically, is proclaim that there is an answer beyond our reach and concoct a string of leading questions that would suggest that there is, in fact, an answer to the question within our reach. So which is it?

To the Queta point, which is probably the toughest one 'emotionally', beyond the fact that we're not discussing it if Pritchard doesn't miss the shot (obviously), Brown himself has explained why he made the pass that he did, so we don't need to speculate about what the coaching staff may or may not have emphasised over the year - and, further, we know that the guy who made the pass doesn't think that the better option was to try for the wide-open layup, because Embiid is right there (paraphrasing):
https://www.instagram.com/p/DX5gvF5EYj4/ (second slide, if the link doesn't work)

I said this in one of the concurrent threads, but the C's offense is looking for the best shot available - so you can say a wide open Pritchard is an example of 'a wild three' and the Queta pass (which Brown clearly has reservations about making) is 'the obvious choice', but I'm not sure it's that simple on the floor and I think the player's statement bears it out.

(which is different, obviously, than whether or not Brown should have been able to make that pass and feel comfortable doing it, but that's not necessarily on the coaching)

I stand corrected.  It *is* knowable.  Jaylen has been mis-coached by Joe so much that he no longer recognizes that an uncontested layup is a better shot than an open three pointer. 

Joe's beloved analytics show us that Pritchard shot 33.2% on threes when open (closest defender between 4 and 6 feet away), with White being the only worse rotation player.  He's sub 26% when being covered within 4 feet.

JB needs to be coached that a streaking Queta will score there way more than 33.2% less of the time, whether it be on a layup, dunk, or foul.  Brown proudly says that he's making that pass "100 times out of 100".  His coach needs to correct him, because that's just terrible basketball.

Emotional language aside, you could also look at the same analytics and see that Pritchard was 49% from the corners  - but that's neither here nor there, as you're clearly being reductive for the sake of the argument. I will say, again, (and have bolded for emphasis) the fact that Brown clearly didn't feel he could make that pass isn't necessarily on the coaching staff.

Does Chris Paul make that pass? Of course.

Is Jaylen Brown Chris Paul? Of course not.

Is that Joe's fault? I'm not as quick to assign blame as you are.

Attacking the basket should be a point of emphasis, as Brad said.  Joe needs to coach that up, in all aspects.  That means that when your player makes the wrong play, you speak with him and coach him not to do it again.

And, JB can make that pass.  He clearly needs to be taught that it's the right pass, though.

[ozgod]

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.

I mean, he said this, so I'm not sure it's as misaligned as you might suggest:

?I look at more of each shot individually, and my general feeling watching us play, in really each of the last two playoffs, in the second-round against New York, even against Orlando in the first round, was, we had a hard time generating really good looks on that first shot,? he said. ?So, we got to figure out a way to do better in that. And I think that that?s again, one of the things that we?ve got to figure out is how to have more of an impact at the rim. And I think we do need to add to our team to do that. Everybody plays a role in that. But, at the end of that game, Embiid is standing at the rim on all those possessions, or a lot of those possessions, right? And so I thought the shots we took, with the exception of Jaylen?s top-of-the-key-three and the one where you get in the middle of the lane, and then Payton?s open shot, I thought they were really well defended. I thought we struggled to get to where we wanted to go on offense a lot of the series, but it was particularly in those last four games, when those four perimeter defenders who are all very good, had Embiid standing behind them.?

And this:

?The biggest thing is: can we generate looks at the rim?? Stevens said. ?Yeah, everybody wants to do that, and every one of us would prefer a dunk over that, over a three. Every single one of us. Those are hard to get, and we struggle to generate them, and so, yeah, we certainly shot some bad ones. I?m not telling you we didn?t. There?s no question about that. But I also thought we shot some really hard shots at the rim, really hard shots in the midrange too, and I don?t necessarily fault anyone for that, other than credit to Philly?s defense, and we?ve got to do a good job as we build out the roster to have more options.?

As quoted by CB, emphasis mine (obviously).

Looks like CB uses the apostrophe the forum hates, but you get the idea.

The thing that is unknowable for fans is whether Joe is emphasizing attacking the rim as being a better option than firing up wild threes.  Joe doesn't really say much of interest in his press conferences, so we don't know.

But, JB and JT certainly both have the skillset to attack the rim.  Is Joe emphasizing this?  Is he emphasizing cutting to the basket?  Is he emphasizing that ball handlers need to be hitting cutters, rather than passing along the perimeter?

I'm sure you've seen replays of us being down by 1, with Queta cutting wide open to the basket in the 4th quarter which would have given us the lead.  Instead, we passed around the perimeter for a missed three pointer.  I think that anybody there would say the better option is to take the wide open layup.  But, are the coaches doing the film study to better help guys recognize those opportunities.

One of the dumber things Joe said back in 2023 was that he didn't emphasize defense, because he assumed the guys knew it was important.  Is this another one of those "I don't tell the guys to cut to the basket / look for open layups" because it's obvious?  Because, that's not how sports work.  If the emphasis is "there's no such thing as a bad three pointer" (which Joe's track record suggests is what is being communicated) then of course the emphasis is one threes.

I mean, how many times has there been an end of game situation where we're down by one, and guys shoot a three?  At some point, they need to be told that there's a 35% chance of that basket going in, versus a 50% chance of a two-pointer.  For a guy who values analytics, those situations are a big blindspot.

From what I've heard of Joe from his players, I don't think he emphasizes anything but "make the right read to get the best shot". He doesn't want them to pre-meditate anything. Other than prioritizing layups and threes (which is Brad's M.O. as well, with the exception of Jaylen who took more long midrange shots than anyone in the NBA after he said he got the green light to shoot them this season, I think he lets them "make the right read". If they made the wrong read he will tell them during the film session.

Whether that's good or bad will probably depend on whether the player made the right read or not