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

[No Nickname]

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.

Not necessarily large-scale changes.  It can be done with one player.

Brad brought in Porzingis and touted how effective he was in the low post, how it was going to change the dynamics of the Celtics--- and it did, while KP was healthy.

My belief is that Brad is looking to either sign a guy with some post-up ability with the MLE, or make a trade for one. 

[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.

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.

Not necessarily large-scale changes.  It can be done with one player.

Brad brought in Porzingis and touted how effective he was in the low post, how it was going to change the dynamics of the Celtics--- and it did, while KP was healthy.

My belief is that Brad is looking to either sign a guy with some post-up ability with the MLE, or make a trade for one.

He won't be able to use the whole MLE because we are a non-taxpaying team so we get $15.1m, but if we use more than $6.1m which is the taxpayer portion, we will be hardcapped at the first apron which is $209m. I'm guessing Brad is going to really value financial flexibility, so we will probably only use $6.1m of that MLE. Or he could use up to $13m of the Simons TPE if we lets Vuc walk, because $13m is the space we have under the tax line before we become a taxpaying team again. If he wants to reset the tax for next season when we will probably have to spend $50m on the extensions for PP, Q, Garza, Walsh and Baylor, it makes sense to reset it by being under next season.

But yes I agree I think he wants an inside threat for offensive diversity. Technically, I thought that would be Vuc, since he does have a post up game and can stretch the floor, but for whatever reason he just didn't want to shoot, he kept passing the ball when they wanted him to shoot.

[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.

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.

Not necessarily large-scale changes.  It can be done with one player.

Brad brought in Porzingis and touted how effective he was in the low post, how it was going to change the dynamics of the Celtics--- and it did, while KP was healthy.

My belief is that Brad is looking to either sign a guy with some post-up ability with the MLE, or make a trade for one.

He won't be able to use the whole MLE because we are a non-taxpaying team so we get $15.1m, but if we use more than $6.1m which is the taxpayer portion, we will be hardcapped at the first apron which is $209m. I'm guessing Brad is going to really value financial flexibility, so we will probably only use $6.1m of that MLE. Or he could use up to $13m of the Simons TPE if we lets Vuc walk, because $13m is the space we have under the tax line before we become a taxpaying team again. If he wants to reset the tax for next season when we will probably have to spend $50m on the extensions for PP, Q, Garza, Walsh and Baylor, it makes sense to reset it by being under next season.

But yes I agree I think he wants an inside threat for offensive diversity. Technically, I thought that would be Vuc, since he does have a post up game and can stretch the floor, but for whatever reason he just didn't want to shoot, he kept passing the ball when they wanted him to shoot.

While Brad likes flexibility, I can't imagine that we'll exceed the first apron next season.

[Who]

Not sure which thread it was on but there was a post on the number of drives by BOS in the playoffs. I was looking at some more of those tracking numbers on nba.com/stats pages.

BOS falls to 17th in the league in drives per game on regular season data (vs 7th out of 16 playoff teams). But rise to 9th per game (above average) in points off drives (8th out of 16, so average). They were 18th on passes off of drives (4th out of 16 in playoffs). Interesting the differences there. Bigger sample size with the regular season. Aligns more with where I would expect BOS to be in terms of drives per game.

Anyway, the other stats I was looking at were paint touches and elbow touches. In the playoffs, BOS was 13th out of 16 teams in paint touches. They were 11th in elbow touches. They were 6th in post ups but everyone had small numbers there except for the 3 top teams (LAL, DEN with Jokic, PHI with Embiid).

Back to the regular season, BOS was 26th in post ups. They were 29th in elbow touches. They were firmly middle of the pack at 14th in paint touches.

I love getting the ball to the elbows with your big. You can create so much movement off ball from that position. Tough to defend for opponents because the ball is behind them (perimeter defenders) and they have to keep switching their heads / angles to keep up with movement off ball. This is where I thought Vucevic could have and still could (next season) help us next season. Getting him the ball more in these areas and diversifying the offense some more. You can't do this with Queta. Nor with Garza who is a scorer but not much of a passer. Vooch is both a scorer and a passer. You can create 3s out of these actions as well.

Anyway, some interesting stats there.