No, it is you. It was not just Tatum tearing his Achilles. It was Brown playing the entire postseason on a torn meniscus. It was Porzingis being a shell of himself with an illness that is still affecting him this year. It was Holiday missing time in the playoffs with a hamstring and also having some other condition that caused the Blazers to rescind draft picks in a trade. It was Tatum getting leveled by the Magic and injuring his wrist. The Celtics were an injured and old team in the playoffs, and faded down the stretch during games. They bombed threes because they did not have the energy to do much else.
This is all pretty factual, facts that tend to get lost in the drama and emotion of losing games to NYK that BOS probably shouldn't have lost. That was not a good series for Mazzulla or anyone else, injured or otherwise. Multiple things can be true at the same time. Mazzulla shares some of the blame for losing that series. Just like he deserves credit for the team winning a title the season before. It is really hard to definitively rate a coach but really easy to blame the coach. I think Mazzulla has performed at a top 10 level as an NBA coach for his career. If CotY voting were today, he would probably come in top 3 or higher for this season.
Is it safe to say that they weren't contending after Tatum went down, though? Other guys were banged up, but it's sort of moot once you lose Tatum.
They were already down 3-1 to NYK after blowing a couple of 20-point leads when Tatum went down. That was more like salt in an already sustained flesh wound. BOS was not good in the series even with Tatum. They should have been up 3-1. Are you saying that even if they were up 3-1, that once Tatum goes down they lose anyway? I don't see this taking them off the hook for being down 3-1 to NYK in the first place.
Yeah, they weren't crawling back in that series.
If somehow that made it to the Finals, they were gonna get lit up by OKC. Team was limping along.
That's where I'm at. Now if Tatum injured his achilles in the first quarter of game 1, of course my expectations go way down and I actually wouldn't have expected to beat Indy or OKC, or possibly even the Knicks. But we were underperforming and losing with Tatum in the lineup before he went down. I'm not surprised people disagree with me. I just can't forget those blown leads. Blown leads and losses in the playoffs happen, of course. For me it's more about how those losses happened. IIRC in the 3rd quarter of game 1, 19 of the 20 shots taken were 3's, many of them early shot clock, low quality shots. It was maddening. I thought with a more patient and balanced approach we should have dismantled the Knicks in 5 games. 6 at most.
In any case I apologize for derailing the thread. We're supposed to be praising Joe. So I'll add these things off the top of my head:
- Great job last night against Indy calling out his starters but subbing all of them out in the 3rd quarter. The bench did an outstanding job picking up the defensive intensity, and the starters sustained it when they came back in. Every player responded to Joe's move. Great decision and sub pattern, even if some of the lineups on paper didn't look like they'd be effective.
- I like that he is giving our young players a chance to prove themselves. He's giving Hugo, Walsh, Minott, and Baylor ample opportunities to prove they can produce, and it's a real dogfight for minutes. It's great for their development, with Hugo showing great promise and Walsh showing he is an NBA level player.
- He seems to have gotten Simmons to buy into his role. I suspect Simmons isn't happy here, as his minutes and production have been significantly cut. I'm sure he'd love to finish games. You can see he's putting in the effort defensively, and while he looks for his shot (which we need him to do) he's not forcing as many selfish shots as you'd expect for someone who is trying to pad their stats for their next contract (see: Rozier, Terry). He's had to sacrifice his offense quite a bit and play within the offense.
- Joe and co in general have done an excellent job developing our young players. Brad found hidden gems (some argue he doesn't draft well which may be partially true, but I'd argue he makes up for it in finding/developing undrafted players) such as Hauser and Kornet, and of course this years young players. I have confidence this will continue. And of course both JB and JT grew up in the Brad - Udoka - Joe era. Hugo has far surpassed my expectations.
I try to be as objective as possible. I won't apologize for what I think are Joe's failures, and I won't hesitate to praise him when I think he's doing a good job.
