Do you trust JB?

[Goldstar88]

Sure but he & Tatum needs each other.  I know he seems to be the scapegoat right now but a lot of things went wrong this series but he's the easy target.

When JB is telling everyone that he is the best two way player in the world and the leader of the team, he deserves the blame. Tatum does not need JB. Pair him with Giannis, Kawhi, KD. If Boston had any of those guys instead of Brown they likely advance to round 2.

he deserves some blame but I give the bulk of it to Joe for p----poor coaching (completely unable to adjust on the fly and that starting game 7 line-up should get him fired) and White for being a complete non-factor the whole series as well as some of the blame to PP for having a Jekyll and Hyde series, Hauser for essentially contributing nothing in the series, Q for not staying out of foul trouble and Walsh for still not being able to do anything on offense.  Add some to Tatum for having a lackadaisical attitude for the games he did play.

Plenty of blame to go around.  this wasn't just on JB by any means

I never said it was as all on Brown, but I put the most blame on him. If the Celtics had Giannis, Kawhi, or KD instead of JB they advance, IMO.

so you're point is that you're not laying this on Joe where it primarily belongs nor on any of the other players on the team who didn't produce squat during this series but on the one guy that did other than Tatum and that if we had one of the handful of players better than JB we'd have won.   got it, although those players you called out are noticeably absent from the second round and Giannis didn't even make the play-in so I think your hypothesis is wrong.

If you think any coach in the NBA is primarily responsible for wins and loses, you?re clearly not paying attention. The star players are the ones who decide games in this league.

[celticinorlando]

Not sure how this is going to play in Boston when he said this was his favorite year of his career. More than the title and and reading between the lines because Tatum was out. A first round exit.

Not even 24 hours after losing game 7 he is on Twitch looking like a dumbass.

I will not be surprised when JB asks for a trade. It would serve both sides.

[Goldstar88]

Not sure how this is going to play in Boston when he said this was his favorite year of his career. More than the title and and reading between the lines because Tatum was out. A first round exit.

Not even 24 hours after losing game 7 he is on Twitch looking like a dumbass.

I will not be surprised when JB asks for a trade. It would serve both sides.

Yeah, hopefully he does.

[slamtheking]

Sure but he & Tatum needs each other.  I know he seems to be the scapegoat right now but a lot of things went wrong this series but he's the easy target.

When JB is telling everyone that he is the best two way player in the world and the leader of the team, he deserves the blame. Tatum does not need JB. Pair him with Giannis, Kawhi, KD. If Boston had any of those guys instead of Brown they likely advance to round 2.

he deserves some blame but I give the bulk of it to Joe for p----poor coaching (completely unable to adjust on the fly and that starting game 7 line-up should get him fired) and White for being a complete non-factor the whole series as well as some of the blame to PP for having a Jekyll and Hyde series, Hauser for essentially contributing nothing in the series, Q for not staying out of foul trouble and Walsh for still not being able to do anything on offense.  Add some to Tatum for having a lackadaisical attitude for the games he did play.

Plenty of blame to go around.  this wasn't just on JB by any means

I never said it was as all on Brown, but I put the most blame on him. If the Celtics had Giannis, Kawhi, or KD instead of JB they advance, IMO.

so you're point is that you're not laying this on Joe where it primarily belongs nor on any of the other players on the team who didn't produce squat during this series but on the one guy that did other than Tatum and that if we had one of the handful of players better than JB we'd have won.   got it, although those players you called out are noticeably absent from the second round and Giannis didn't even make the play-in so I think your hypothesis is wrong.

If you think any coach in the NBA is primarily responsible for wins and loses, you?re clearly not paying attention. The star players are the ones who decide games in this league.

and which star player instituted the "live by the 3, die by the 3" philosophy.  that was Joe, not a player.

which star player filled out the starting line-up for game 7 that put this team in a serious hole really quickly?  oh, that was Joe too.

Which star player decided not to call a time out down the stretch to come up with a play to get a sure bucket or at least a good shot?  hmm, that was time-out hoarding Joe again. 

Joe doesn't take the shots nor turn the ball over but he is responsible for putting these players in the best position to win and he's failed 3 out of the 4 years he's been here.  Try this comparison -- Brad's teams overachieved when he was coaching the J's.  Joe's teams have underachieved in all but 1 year. 

[keevsnick]

Sure but he & Tatum needs each other.  I know he seems to be the scapegoat right now but a lot of things went wrong this series but he's the easy target.

When JB is telling everyone that he is the best two way player in the world and the leader of the team, he deserves the blame. Tatum does not need JB. Pair him with Giannis, Kawhi, KD. If Boston had any of those guys instead of Brown they likely advance to round 2.

he deserves some blame but I give the bulk of it to Joe for p----poor coaching (completely unable to adjust on the fly and that starting game 7 line-up should get him fired) and White for being a complete non-factor the whole series as well as some of the blame to PP for having a Jekyll and Hyde series, Hauser for essentially contributing nothing in the series, Q for not staying out of foul trouble and Walsh for still not being able to do anything on offense.  Add some to Tatum for having a lackadaisical attitude for the games he did play.

Plenty of blame to go around.  this wasn't just on JB by any means

I never said it was as all on Brown, but I put the most blame on him. If the Celtics had Giannis, Kawhi, or KD instead of JB they advance, IMO.

Saying "if we had KD instead of Brown we advance" in reference to a guy who hasn't been out of the first round in the last five years and WAS LITERALLY INJURED IN THE FIRST ROUND THIS YEAR is peak non-sense.

[keevsnick]

Do i trust a 5 all star, 2x all nba, finals MVP? Yes.

Well twice now in a game 7 JB had the stage to himself and did nothing with it. The year JT got hurt vs Miami and the other night.

 Really wasn't a factor in the 2023 game 7 vs Philly either.
Good regular season player. Inconsistent playoff player.

Brown is more of a Robin than a Batman. He just can't see it. Can't have the opinion he has about himself and not show up in the playoffs.

I just don't agree with anything you just wrote. I thought he was pretty good in the game 7, not good enough but he went toe to toe with a former league MVP and was one or two shots away from winning a game in which the Celtics shot 27% from three.

As for "can't have that opinion of himself and not show up" I just don't really have a lot of patience for this sort of pseudo psychological basketball analysis. Not sure what to do with it, I just don't find it useful. Athletes are allowed to be confident, then are allowed to have a chip on their shoulder, it's fine. As for his playoff performance I think overall he's been good, he's had two series in his life I thought he was actively bad in and those were NYK last year (on a torn meniscus) and that MIA series.,

Where I come out is this: Are you winning a title with Jaylen as your best player? No. Your best player is typically an MVP/DPOY level guy, and Jaylen isn't that. But do I have any problem with a guy THINKING he's that level of player when he's not? No I do not. Whatever motivates a guy is fine by me.

The problem the C's have is "attitude" or any number of other vague meaningless nonsense we as fans love to throw around. Its talent. In the last 21 seasons (2005-2025) only ONE team won an NBA championship without either an MVP or DPOY on their roster. That was your 2024 Boston Celtics. Its REALLY HARD TO DO.

The Celtics primary problem is they don't have that one unstoppable offensive engine type guy, the one undeniable guy. Tatum is a good offensive player, but a lot of his value is being a well rounded guy without weakness rather than a true offensive superstar. This results in the Celtics needing to lean HEAVILY into the 3 ball essentially gaming the math to generate elite offense. That can work, but there's always the possibility that the shooting desserts you for three games and you blow a 3-1 lead because you shoot 28% in games 5-7. It happens. Its not really Brown, Tatum or Mazzula's fault per se. It's a roster issue, one that is very hard to fix.

Its part of the reason the "shoot less threes" people are wrong. The Celtics could probably have a more "normal offense" with more shooting balance, but the net result would be an offense with less upside. Because they simply do not have the right pieces to make a two-point heavy offense work. The upside is what you need to win the title, in return you will get some series like this one where the shooting betrays you. That's the tradeoff.

You can go back to 1989. The Pistons are the next most recent team to not have a DPOY or MVP on the roster and it is 89 and not 90 because Rodman won the DPOY in 1990 (and 91).  Before that is was the 1981 Celtics who won that title before Bird got his 1st MVP.

Thanks for the info.

It sort of just reinforced my initial response to all this; which is people need to calm down. Its REALLY hard to win a title, its even harder to win a title when you're under the tax, its even harder still to win when your best player plays a total of 22 games all year, and its even harder when your bets player isn't a MVP level guy.

Coming into this year nobody though the Celtics would be as good as they were. If you'd said "the Celtics will lose in 7 games in the first round to a Maxey/Embiid/George 76ers team most people probably would have assumed we were the 7th seed and overachieved.

I just don't like the moralizing. Losing doesn't need to be stain on somebody's character. It doesn't mean a team is lazy, entitled, ect. It just means you weren't good enough.

[Who]

Sure but he & Tatum needs each other.  I know he seems to be the scapegoat right now but a lot of things went wrong this series but he's the easy target.

When JB is telling everyone that he is the best two way player in the world and the leader of the team, he deserves the blame. Tatum does not need JB. Pair him with Giannis, Kawhi, KD. If Boston had any of those guys instead of Brown they likely advance to round 2.

he deserves some blame but I give the bulk of it to Joe for p----poor coaching (completely unable to adjust on the fly and that starting game 7 line-up should get him fired) and White for being a complete non-factor the whole series as well as some of the blame to PP for having a Jekyll and Hyde series, Hauser for essentially contributing nothing in the series, Q for not staying out of foul trouble and Walsh for still not being able to do anything on offense.  Add some to Tatum for having a lackadaisical attitude for the games he did play.

Plenty of blame to go around.  this wasn't just on JB by any means

Agree that it is not Jaylen.

I am less critical of Mazzula. Primarily, I put this down to the players under-performing and not the coach. Queta & Vooch underperformed. Hauser, Pritchard & D White underperformed. J Walsh underperformed. Baylor was quiet. Jaylen was so-so. Jaylen is way down the list of problems in that series. So is Mazzula for me. It was primarily a player-issue. Not a coaching-issue. Too many guys did not perform.

It was not Mazzula's fault that Queta kept picking up silly fouls. It was not Mazzula's fault that J Walsh couldn't make a shot. It was not Mazzula's fault that Vooch got hurt right after joining the team and never got settled in the team. There are some things Mazzula could have done to help Vooch offensively but the main cause was the lack of games / reps Vooch had with his teammates. It is not Mazzula's fault that D White was averaging something like 8ppg 3apg 5-6 games into the series while shooting 30-something% from the field and 20-something% from 3. It is not Mazzula's fault that Pritchard was up and down in the series.

With the shooting going in the tank for the final few games, it made life more difficult for everyone else. Including Jaylen. Philly could help more on defense. Take more risks. Shrink the court more. Force BOS into harder shots. It had knock-on effects.

Mazzula did some things I don't like in the series. The Game 7 starting lineup was #1. Not making more of an effort to get Vucevic involved in the offense is #2. Sticking with J Walsh so long when he was misfiring is #3. But I don't see Mazzula as one of the main causes of BOS' exit from the playoffs. It is more about the players to my eyes.

[Goldstar88]

Sure but he & Tatum needs each other.  I know he seems to be the scapegoat right now but a lot of things went wrong this series but he's the easy target.

When JB is telling everyone that he is the best two way player in the world and the leader of the team, he deserves the blame. Tatum does not need JB. Pair him with Giannis, Kawhi, KD. If Boston had any of those guys instead of Brown they likely advance to round 2.

he deserves some blame but I give the bulk of it to Joe for p----poor coaching (completely unable to adjust on the fly and that starting game 7 line-up should get him fired) and White for being a complete non-factor the whole series as well as some of the blame to PP for having a Jekyll and Hyde series, Hauser for essentially contributing nothing in the series, Q for not staying out of foul trouble and Walsh for still not being able to do anything on offense.  Add some to Tatum for having a lackadaisical attitude for the games he did play.

Plenty of blame to go around.  this wasn't just on JB by any means

I never said it was as all on Brown, but I put the most blame on him. If the Celtics had Giannis, Kawhi, or KD instead of JB they advance, IMO.

so you're point is that you're not laying this on Joe where it primarily belongs nor on any of the other players on the team who didn't produce squat during this series but on the one guy that did other than Tatum and that if we had one of the handful of players better than JB we'd have won.   got it, although those players you called out are noticeably absent from the second round and Giannis didn't even make the play-in so I think your hypothesis is wrong.

If you think any coach in the NBA is primarily responsible for wins and loses, you?re clearly not paying attention. The star players are the ones who decide games in this league.

and which star player instituted the "live by the 3, die by the 3" philosophy.  that was Joe, not a player.

which star player filled out the starting line-up for game 7 that put this team in a serious hole really quickly?  oh, that was Joe too.

Which star player decided not to call a time out down the stretch to come up with a play to get a sure bucket or at least a good shot?  hmm, that was time-out hoarding Joe again. 

Joe doesn't take the shots nor turn the ball over but he is responsible for putting these players in the best position to win and he's failed 3 out of the 4 years he's been here.  Try this comparison -- Brad's teams overachieved when he was coaching the J's.  Joe's teams have underachieved in all but 1 year.

Wrong again, it was Brad. This is how he built the roster and wants them to play.

Following a May 2026 Celtics game, Joe Mazzulla stated, "We're always going to play to the strengths of the roster that we have. I think it's the best way to be able to do that... We go out and get five big men that can post, we'll post it every single time... we'll do whatever we got to do to win"