Praise for Joe

[tenn_smoothie]

Agree with Roy, Mazzula deserves strong credit for our play so far.  I say that as someone who has been very critical of him at times.  Last season was a major failure, especially the playoffs. 3rd quarter of game 1 against the Knicks was straight up coaching malpractice after a successful, balanced first half.  It was the most ineffective and idiotic quarter of basketball I've ever seen, employing Joe's rigid 3-point happy philosophy and moving away from what was working. I'll never forget it, and quite frankly I think Joe helped us squander another title run.  But I digress.  If I'm going to criticize him, I should also praise him when things are going well.

The fact that we're still one of the top defensive teams despite the roster turnover and missing one of our best defenders in Tatum says a lot.  4th in defensive rating as a few games ago IIRC.  Always important to be a good defensive team, so I'm glad that's the emphasis.  The youngsters are developing well.  And the offense has been functioning better than expected while missing Tatum.  So props to Joe, for now.

Defense has not been the problem, for the most part, with Mazzulla.

It is his extreme 3-point heavy offensive scheme that is the main problem. Aggravating that is his stubborn, almost immature and insecure persona in regard to trying to justify that offense. SCeltic, you are right on target about last season's Knick series. Both Games 1 & 2 were coaching malpractice. Blowing two 20-point second half leads by recklessly continuing to shoot and miss 3-point shots without stopping play and adjusting the offense to create higher percentage shots was horrible coaching and cost us the series. I continue to be at a loss as to why there has never been alternative offensive strategies added to our schemes.

[mobilija]

It?s crazy that someone could watch this team and not credit coaching for how much better they are than the perceived preseason talent. That they could complain about ?stubborn 3 point shooting? when a) this (and previous) team shoot very well which leads to a very good win percentage and b) the offense is clearly varied and nuanced this year relying more than any team in the league on the mid range shot.

Mainly tho, This team just flat out plays harder 90% of the time than the opponent. That and the player growth have so much to do with coaching.

I don?t know how you could possibly watch the last two games especially and not come away with how top notch this Celtics coaching staff is. Likely top 3 in the league.

But the 3s!!😭
Insanity

[ozgod]

I mentioned this in the game thread, Joe gets a lot of stick for his flaws and rightfully so but one thing I've been impressed with him with is his ability to get players to buy into his vision and play hard for him. We talk about tactics and timeouts and subs and all that tactical stuff but he has a whole staff to help him with that (I hope he's using them). I feel like his primary, and most important, role as head Coach is to make sure everyone is aligned and pulling in the same direction, with the same goal, with personal agendas subordinated to the overall goal, and to make sure everyone that plays adopts the team culture, sacrifices if needed, and he's definitely done that.

Compare that with Philly where even taking into account Embiid being in and out of the lineup, they have players that are all chasing their own agendas, some are stat padding so they can get paid, some are trying to get traded so they can get paid, some are trying to get scoring titles and nobody seems to be aligned and prepared to sacrifice. Their ream has definite Celtics 2018-19 vibes.