Joe Mazzula Wins Coach Of The Year

[Roy H.]

Brad Stevens noted that despite winning 56 regular-season games, the Boston Celtics were just 3-11 against the other top-three seeds in each conference

This is telling.  It shows that the good teams were able to expose the Celtics' weaknesses during the regular season.  There are a lot of regular season nights where the opposing team is flat or doesn't even try.  BOS played hard every night for the most part, scrapped and overachieved.  That is a testament to Mazzulla's coaching and Brown's leadership.  But the roster had flaws.  I think Stevens has this right.

Many don't agree but I think Mazzulla is a good young coach.  I further believe that Brad Stevens believes this too.  Just like the roster has some holes or weaknesses, Mazzulla does too.  But do you throw out the baby with the bathwater and fire Mazzulla?  Are you really sure the next coach will actually be better?  Spoelstra was a good young coach with some flaws at a point also.  This is probably true of all good or great coaches.

It is an old adage that coaches get too much credit for winning and too much blame for loosing.  MIA series, bad coaching or nobody MIA players shooting 50% from 3?  DAL series, good coaching or team that won in spite of bad coaching?  PHI series, bad coaching or a team/roster that wasn't as good as it seemed?  You can play any of these any way you want.

I think the first step is to get Joe some assistants that are good at identifying and implementing adjustments.

[Donoghus]

It is an old adage that coaches get too much credit for winning and too much blame for loosing.  MIA series, bad coaching or nobody MIA players shooting 50% from 3?  DAL series, good coaching or team that won in spite of bad coaching?  PHI series, bad coaching or a team/roster that wasn't as good as it seemed?  You can play any of these any way you want.

This.  The failures have been a combination of lack of adjustments (and questionable rotation moves)  by the coaching staff, some horrible execution by the players (some very low BBIQ play) and also just some strokes of bad luck. 

Mazzulla and Jaylen seem to be getting the bulk of the bashing on these parts (excessively so, IMO) but the blame runs deep on every playoff failure the past 3 of 4 seasons.

[Roy H.]

It is an old adage that coaches get too much credit for winning and too much blame for loosing.  MIA series, bad coaching or nobody MIA players shooting 50% from 3?  DAL series, good coaching or team that won in spite of bad coaching?  PHI series, bad coaching or a team/roster that wasn't as good as it seemed?  You can play any of these any way you want.

This.  The failures have been a combination of lack of adjustments (and questionable rotation moves)  by the coaching staff, some horrible execution by the players (some very low BBIQ play) and also just some strokes of bad luck. 

Mazzulla and Jaylen seem to be getting the bulk of the bashing on these parts (excessively so, IMO) but the blame runs deep on every playoff failure the past 3 of 4 seasons.

I definitely wouldn't blame just those two.  It was a total team effort to suck that badly.  I think that every single player played beneath expectations on at least one end of the floor, with the possible exception of JT.

[Goldstar88]

Mazz is an excellent coach and there was no one else who should have won this award this year. 

The problems we've seen in the playoffs is one of roster construction and talent.

Yeah, most thought the Celtics would be lucky to make the playoffs and they finished a 2 seed. Also went 9-2 in the games Jaylen Brown did not play in this season. Joe got the most out of the team he was given.

No, he didn't.  He lost to a #7 seed that promptly got swept by a NY team that wasn't at full strength. 

Joe has only won in the playoffs when we had five guys with all-star talent.  We've been upset three out of four seasons by a lower seed, including losing to the #7 and #8 seed.

I think the roster was exposed in the playoffs. Brad basically said as much in his year end interview. He noted that their record during the season against the top teams in the league was not good.

Brad Stevens noted that despite winning 56 regular-season games, the Boston Celtics were just 3-11 against the other top-three seeds in each conference

What is Brad supposed to say?  "Our players choked and Joe sucked"? 

It's interesting that we've had 10+ more regular season wins than every team we've lost to under Joe.

The year we did win, we had 16+ more wins than everybody we faced.

I mean, he did criticize the players. Why didn?t Brad say, I think we are shooting too many 3?s, I don?t think we had a good game plan in the playoffs. It does not seem like Brad thinks Joe is the issue. If he did, Joe probably wouldn?t be here.

[Who]

In seriousness Joe deserves a lot of credit in papering over the Celtics flaws during the regular season, largely because he got all the players to buy in, particularly the bench and the lesser names, even if some of them sat for long stretches. Players like Q, Walsh, Hugo, Garza, Simons, Baylor and Harper were all instrumental in the team significantly exceeding expectations during the regular season.

Unfortunately the playoffs, being a 7 game series and more about matchups, have a way of unmasking weaknesses. And our weaknesses were unmasked by a team that eventually matched up well against us - we had nobody to defend Embiid, who was at 70%, all our centers got into foul trouble against him. And we had nobody to defend Maxey at the point of attack. And they went away from the strategy they had employed throughout the regular season, which was to take less 3s and more midrange and paint shots, back to one where they took a lot more perimeter shots (and to make it worse they missed them more often than their average).

I wonder if that is just a knock-on effect of having Tatum back. Tatum is a high volume 3pt shooter. He has taken 8-10 threes per game in the regular season for the last 5 years. 8.9 threes in 16 games this year. He took 8.7 per game in the playoffs.

Not strategy. Just personnel.

Only 10 players in the entire league took 8+ three pointers this season.

It would not surprise me if that difference in team shot selection & the increase in three pointers was entirely down to Tatum being back in the lineup.

[Roy H.]

Mazz is an excellent coach and there was no one else who should have won this award this year. 

The problems we've seen in the playoffs is one of roster construction and talent.

Yeah, most thought the Celtics would be lucky to make the playoffs and they finished a 2 seed. Also went 9-2 in the games Jaylen Brown did not play in this season. Joe got the most out of the team he was given.

No, he didn't.  He lost to a #7 seed that promptly got swept by a NY team that wasn't at full strength. 

Joe has only won in the playoffs when we had five guys with all-star talent.  We've been upset three out of four seasons by a lower seed, including losing to the #7 and #8 seed.

I think the roster was exposed in the playoffs. Brad basically said as much in his year end interview. He noted that their record during the season against the top teams in the league was not good.

Brad Stevens noted that despite winning 56 regular-season games, the Boston Celtics were just 3-11 against the other top-three seeds in each conference

What is Brad supposed to say?  "Our players choked and Joe sucked"? 

It's interesting that we've had 10+ more regular season wins than every team we've lost to under Joe.

The year we did win, we had 16+ more wins than everybody we faced.

I mean, he did criticize the players. Why didn?t Brad say, I think we are shooting too many 3?s, I don?t think we had a good game plan in the playoffs. It does not seem like Brad thinks Joe is the issue. If he did, Joe probably wouldn?t be here.

Which individual player did he call out?

[rocknrollforyoursoul]

Are you okay with lots of good/very good regular seasons followed mostly by underwhelming playoff performances? If so, you're probably happy with Joe.

It seems to me that Joe is a generally good coach in the regular season?when you have a different opponent nearly every game (minimizing the need for adjustments), and you can catch good teams having off nights?but struggles to make adjustments when facing the same opponent 4-7 consecutive games.

Joe is presumably still learning, but he's had four seasons to learn how to make adjustments on the fly in the postseason (or get assistants who are good at that), and he hasn't done it. He led them to a title (let's admit it, that team was loaded and had a relatively easy path through the postseason that year), but in his other three seasons he's 20-18 in the playoffs, with several notable black marks:

• Conference finals loss to the 8-seed Heat
• Blowing 20-point leads in consecutive games to the Knicks
• Blowing a 3-1 series lead to Philly

Hopefully he can and will learn how to adjust on the fly, but I didn't see any signs of that in this year's playoffs. If he hasn't learned that fundamental coaching skill in four years, why should we think he's going to learn it now? How many years do we wait for him to learn that (if he ever does)? How long will Brad be content with ?good regular season followed by terrible playoff performance??

[Goldstar88]

Mazz is an excellent coach and there was no one else who should have won this award this year. 

The problems we've seen in the playoffs is one of roster construction and talent.

Yeah, most thought the Celtics would be lucky to make the playoffs and they finished a 2 seed. Also went 9-2 in the games Jaylen Brown did not play in this season. Joe got the most out of the team he was given.

No, he didn't.  He lost to a #7 seed that promptly got swept by a NY team that wasn't at full strength. 

Joe has only won in the playoffs when we had five guys with all-star talent.  We've been upset three out of four seasons by a lower seed, including losing to the #7 and #8 seed.

I think the roster was exposed in the playoffs. Brad basically said as much in his year end interview. He noted that their record during the season against the top teams in the league was not good.

Brad Stevens noted that despite winning 56 regular-season games, the Boston Celtics were just 3-11 against the other top-three seeds in each conference

What is Brad supposed to say?  "Our players choked and Joe sucked"? 

It's interesting that we've had 10+ more regular season wins than every team we've lost to under Joe.

The year we did win, we had 16+ more wins than everybody we faced.

I mean, he did criticize the players. Why didn?t Brad say, I think we are shooting too many 3?s, I don?t think we had a good game plan in the playoffs. It does not seem like Brad thinks Joe is the issue. If he did, Joe probably wouldn?t be here.

Which individual player did he call out?

The other thing [is] that we haven't been done this early in a while, and so there's time to do deep dives, and it's really important that we all do, Stevens said. I will say that 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. So, we got to figure out a way to do better in that.

You go back to our championship year, and we did that in the Miami series and the Cleveland series, with a very experienced, good team, Stevens said. Now, you go back to the Miami series three years ago. We had a big lead in Game 1. Go back to the New York series last year. Big lead in Games 1 and 2. You go back to Game 5 this year.

And so to me, it is somewhat prosperity within the game and being able to, in those moments, be even more dialed in and locked in and recognize that, yeah, we should have played better in games. We could have played better in Game 7. We could have played better on the road in Game 6. We had a chance to close that out in Game 5.

There's enough [from] those three years [that], I agree with you, and I would even say our championship year, he said. And we need to get better in those moments.

[Roy H.]

Mazz is an excellent coach and there was no one else who should have won this award this year. 

The problems we've seen in the playoffs is one of roster construction and talent.

Yeah, most thought the Celtics would be lucky to make the playoffs and they finished a 2 seed. Also went 9-2 in the games Jaylen Brown did not play in this season. Joe got the most out of the team he was given.

No, he didn't.  He lost to a #7 seed that promptly got swept by a NY team that wasn't at full strength. 

Joe has only won in the playoffs when we had five guys with all-star talent.  We've been upset three out of four seasons by a lower seed, including losing to the #7 and #8 seed.

I think the roster was exposed in the playoffs. Brad basically said as much in his year end interview. He noted that their record during the season against the top teams in the league was not good.

Brad Stevens noted that despite winning 56 regular-season games, the Boston Celtics were just 3-11 against the other top-three seeds in each conference

What is Brad supposed to say?  "Our players choked and Joe sucked"? 

It's interesting that we've had 10+ more regular season wins than every team we've lost to under Joe.

The year we did win, we had 16+ more wins than everybody we faced.

I mean, he did criticize the players. Why didn?t Brad say, I think we are shooting too many 3?s, I don?t think we had a good game plan in the playoffs. It does not seem like Brad thinks Joe is the issue. If he did, Joe probably wouldn?t be here.

Which individual player did he call out?

The other thing [is] that we haven't been done this early in a while, and so there's time to do deep dives, and it's really important that we all do, Stevens said. I will say that 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. So, we got to figure out a way to do better in that.

You go back to our championship year, and we did that in the Miami series and the Cleveland series, with a very experienced, good team, Stevens said. Now, you go back to the Miami series three years ago. We had a big lead in Game 1. Go back to the New York series last year. Big lead in Games 1 and 2. You go back to Game 5 this year.

And so to me, it is somewhat prosperity within the game and being able to, in those moments, be even more dialed in and locked in and recognize that, yeah, we should have played better in games. We could have played better in Game 7. We could have played better on the road in Game 6. We had a chance to close that out in Game 5.

There's enough [from] those three years [that], I agree with you, and I would even say our championship year, he said. And we need to get better in those moments.

So, he didn't point to any single player or coach.  In other words, what a GM would typically say. 

Does a coach play any role in generating good shots?

[Goldstar88]

Mazz is an excellent coach and there was no one else who should have won this award this year. 

The problems we've seen in the playoffs is one of roster construction and talent.

Yeah, most thought the Celtics would be lucky to make the playoffs and they finished a 2 seed. Also went 9-2 in the games Jaylen Brown did not play in this season. Joe got the most out of the team he was given.

No, he didn't.  He lost to a #7 seed that promptly got swept by a NY team that wasn't at full strength. 

Joe has only won in the playoffs when we had five guys with all-star talent.  We've been upset three out of four seasons by a lower seed, including losing to the #7 and #8 seed.

I think the roster was exposed in the playoffs. Brad basically said as much in his year end interview. He noted that their record during the season against the top teams in the league was not good.

Brad Stevens noted that despite winning 56 regular-season games, the Boston Celtics were just 3-11 against the other top-three seeds in each conference

What is Brad supposed to say?  "Our players choked and Joe sucked"? 

It's interesting that we've had 10+ more regular season wins than every team we've lost to under Joe.

The year we did win, we had 16+ more wins than everybody we faced.

I mean, he did criticize the players. Why didn?t Brad say, I think we are shooting too many 3?s, I don?t think we had a good game plan in the playoffs. It does not seem like Brad thinks Joe is the issue. If he did, Joe probably wouldn?t be here.

Which individual player did he call out?

The other thing [is] that we haven't been done this early in a while, and so there's time to do deep dives, and it's really important that we all do, Stevens said. I will say that 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. So, we got to figure out a way to do better in that.

You go back to our championship year, and we did that in the Miami series and the Cleveland series, with a very experienced, good team, Stevens said. Now, you go back to the Miami series three years ago. We had a big lead in Game 1. Go back to the New York series last year. Big lead in Games 1 and 2. You go back to Game 5 this year.

And so to me, it is somewhat prosperity within the game and being able to, in those moments, be even more dialed in and locked in and recognize that, yeah, we should have played better in games. We could have played better in Game 7. We could have played better on the road in Game 6. We had a chance to close that out in Game 5.

There's enough [from] those three years [that], I agree with you, and I would even say our championship year, he said. And we need to get better in those moments.

So, he didn't point to any single player or coach.  In other words, what a GM would typically say. 

Does a coach play any role in generating good shots?

He literally said we could have played better multiple times. Not that we could have coached better. To me, that?s aimed at the players. He also mentioned in that interview that the players seem to take their foot off of the gas. He didn?t say Joe took his foot off the gas.

Those four guys we were trying to drive the ball against this week, those four guys are elite athletes, and they?re hard to beat individually. And so you really have to play great to get what you want. And if you take your foot off the gas at any point, it?s gonna come back to bite you.

[ozgod]

I can understand why a coach wouldn't call out an individual player in public...those are usually things they keep in house. It makes it look like he's shifting blame on the player, which can destabilize the locker room. Yes some coaches do it, like Ime, and everyone can make up their own minds as to whether it is effective or not in Houston. I do know fans find it fun hearing a coach shred his players, give the overpaid, underperforming divas a good old spray, because we wish we could say that to them after they blow another game and ruin our evening, so it's great when someone else does and humiliates them in public, it's great theater 

Now what we are not privy to, which is the important part of discipline, is whether he holds them accountable in private. There's no evidence either way, but I remember Joe benching players immediately after they failed to get an offensive rebound or if they turned the ball over, so I imagine he does. This is not to say he can't be a better disciplinarian. Too often we fall into polarized camps of either "Joe is awesome and can do no wrong" or "Joe sucks, he can't do a thing right" when the answer is usually in between.

[Roy H.]

Mazz is an excellent coach and there was no one else who should have won this award this year. 

The problems we've seen in the playoffs is one of roster construction and talent.

Yeah, most thought the Celtics would be lucky to make the playoffs and they finished a 2 seed. Also went 9-2 in the games Jaylen Brown did not play in this season. Joe got the most out of the team he was given.

No, he didn't.  He lost to a #7 seed that promptly got swept by a NY team that wasn't at full strength. 

Joe has only won in the playoffs when we had five guys with all-star talent.  We've been upset three out of four seasons by a lower seed, including losing to the #7 and #8 seed.

I think the roster was exposed in the playoffs. Brad basically said as much in his year end interview. He noted that their record during the season against the top teams in the league was not good.

Brad Stevens noted that despite winning 56 regular-season games, the Boston Celtics were just 3-11 against the other top-three seeds in each conference

What is Brad supposed to say?  "Our players choked and Joe sucked"? 

It's interesting that we've had 10+ more regular season wins than every team we've lost to under Joe.

The year we did win, we had 16+ more wins than everybody we faced.

I mean, he did criticize the players. Why didn?t Brad say, I think we are shooting too many 3?s, I don?t think we had a good game plan in the playoffs. It does not seem like Brad thinks Joe is the issue. If he did, Joe probably wouldn?t be here.

Which individual player did he call out?

The other thing [is] that we haven't been done this early in a while, and so there's time to do deep dives, and it's really important that we all do, Stevens said. I will say that 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. So, we got to figure out a way to do better in that.

You go back to our championship year, and we did that in the Miami series and the Cleveland series, with a very experienced, good team, Stevens said. Now, you go back to the Miami series three years ago. We had a big lead in Game 1. Go back to the New York series last year. Big lead in Games 1 and 2. You go back to Game 5 this year.

And so to me, it is somewhat prosperity within the game and being able to, in those moments, be even more dialed in and locked in and recognize that, yeah, we should have played better in games. We could have played better in Game 7. We could have played better on the road in Game 6. We had a chance to close that out in Game 5.

There's enough [from] those three years [that], I agree with you, and I would even say our championship year, he said. And we need to get better in those moments.

So, he didn't point to any single player or coach.  In other words, what a GM would typically say. 

Does a coach play any role in generating good shots?

He literally said we could have played better multiple times. Not that we could have coached better. To me, that?s aimed at the players. He also mentioned in that interview that the players seem to take their foot off of the gas. He didn?t say Joe took his foot off the gas.

Those four guys we were trying to drive the ball against this week, those four guys are elite athletes, and they?re hard to beat individually. And so you really have to play great to get what you want. And if you take your foot off the gas at any point, it?s gonna come back to bite you.

Your interpretation only makes sense if Brad thinks coaching doesn't have an effect on play.  Also, you have to ignore his use of "we" and "we all".

[Vermont Green]

I am not sure what you guys are debating.  Is it whether or not Brad Stevens believes Mazzulla is doing a good job or not?  In his statements he calls out the players in general, but no specific players.  He acknowledges that the roster needs to be improved.  But he doesn't call out any coaches specifically or in general.  I have not seen or heard anything from Stevens which would make me think he has any doubt about Mazzulla as the coach moving forward.

I still find it odd that a young coach who has a title and a COTY award gets so much criticism.

My opinion of Mazzulla is that I think he is a good coach, top of the league.  If you were to replace him, I am not sure who would be for sure better.  I do think that the offensive scheme lacks layers (I think this is similar to what Stevens was trying to say).  That issue with the offensive scheme could be related to personnel or coaching or both.  But they do have difficulty getting that first good shot at times, especially in the playoffs.

Other teams seem to have more off ball screening, more off ball motion in general.  A big part of the regular season success was that Brown added the mid-range fade away shot to his game.  Teams adjusted to that by the playoffs (and I guess the refs started calling offensive fouls on Brown).  But I am not sure the roster offered many other options with guys like Vucevic, Queta, Scheierman, Hauser, and so on.