But cant the flipside, especially in a game 2 with the team up 1-0 also be true? As in, the more desperate heat are going to come out guns a blazing and the celts want to absorb it...Just a quick glance at Denver but they lost the first quarters of games 2 & 5 at home vs the heat last year. And have lost first quarters in first two games at home vs lakers this year.
Are we sure Joe said, Hey lets play passive and not contest Miami's 3's? Based on the countless fundamental errors the Celtics made the entire game isn't it about 98% likely that this was one more? The coach can't play for the players and there is no doubt in anyones mind that these players didn't come out with any urgency last night. Remember how Miami got run off the floor by us in games last year? Was that Spo simply not having a good game plan or the players not executing/playing with an urgency? The blaming of coaches, especially in the playoffs, goes way overboard sometimes imo.
I wasn't in on the pre-game game plan discussion or the huddle. But the Heat came out immediately last night and were shooting 3s. At some point CJM might have suggested to defend the perimeter with a little more intensity.
To me it looked like they were giving fake hustle to defend it but not closing out hard. Again, I'm sure Joe and his staff chimed in about paying attention to detail on the other end too which didn't occur. There were many times a defender closed out but not hard.....that is a sign they they checked in to work but didn't compete to win. It was a tough game to get ready for from Bostons prespective and an easy one for Miami to be motivated for. Games 3 & 4 will give us a TON more information about this team as opposed to a somewhat expected flat effort against a team that played with desperation.
Yes, if the Celtics were to lose this series, everything would be on the table this offseason. Wyc is not writing those checks to watch 8 other teams play NBA basketball May and June and listen to people chalk it up to shooting variance and sub-optimal matchups. But it's still too much of a hypothetical to predict the reaction.
Miami made a ton of first-half 3s last nite and still trailed at the break. I'm guessing the coaching staff figured the Heat would start missing more from outside and thus saw no reason to make sweeping strategical changes.
Most of the players, especially KP, JH and JT, seemed to be really frustrated with how much the Heat were allowed to get away playing hyper physical. It probably threw them off.
They scored the first 17 points of Game 1.
Jrue and KP weren’t there and Jimmy Butler was. Last night was as ultimate of a “not take a team seriously” spot as there is in this league. The thing is if we were down 10 at the half we’d have arguably been in better shape than being up 3 as being down 10 allows the team to regroup and gain some urgency. That never happened.
100% agree. KP should be the story today. I’ll be watching him closely in Game 3. When he’s normal, we win. If he doesn’t perform, hold onto your butts.
Honestly - and I’m not trying to be snarky- now I’m at a loss for words. I mean, maybe you’re right but I would be shocked if Joe’s Celtics career survives a first round loss, and I’m really surprised you think that was a controversial take. This ownership team has gone all-in in a very aggressive, extremely expensive push to win a banner. And as great as Brad has been as a GM his one, surprising weakness has been choosing coaches, first saddling the team with a guy whose sex addiction apparently led to an incident where his chosen coach ended up sleeping with one of the owner’s wives and then landed on Brad’s full endorsement of a very young, very inexperienced guy who got a lot of criticism after the team flopped against the 8 seed in the ECF. His continued support of that guy prevented him from getting canned last year but if that same shit happened again, and this time in the first round and with that team not having their best player, the pressure to fire Mazz would be through the roof.“No words” had nothing to do with last nights coaching when the players on the floor did not show up for a playoff game. The “No words” had to do with suggesting Joe is fired if we lose this series. Hey, I tried 3x to give an actual repsonse but after reading that part of your post again I didn’t seem it worthy.
Edit: Ok I’ll try. If Joe wasn’t Brads guy then this would be a perfect excuse to get rid of him to bring in a guy who shares your vision. But you see Joe does share Brads vision which is why he was the one assistant that was going to be retained no matter who was brought in when Brad moved upstairs. Joe is Brads guy, players and some media people have raves about his process this year….one series isn’t going to chance that. Like absolute zero consideration….and you even doubled down on it at the end of this post. I want the last 3 obvious minutes of my life back.
No snarkiness detected….I had more than this. We are all in snarky moods today. Yeah we are on completely two different sides of this fence and hopefully we never find out who was right and we win in 5, which is probably the most likely result of this series slightly ahead of us winning in 6.
This is the playoffs with a chance to bury the heat. In the playoffs (not practice, talking about the playoffs) Not the regular season, the pkayoffs. We are talking about the pkayoffs.
We also had a 14-9 lead early in Game 2, it's not like we were blown off the court from the tip.
Yeah, the C's led 42-37 with six minutes left in the second quarter, so I question that they came out "too flat." They had plenty of problems last nite, but their start wasn't one of them.
Yup. Before the series started I opined Heat were unlikely to win a 120-110 type game and would try to play and win a lower scoring type game.
I thought that the game was still there to be taken - Miami cooled off, Celts had the last possession of Q3, the first possession of Q4 and the next 3 possessions before scoring. When Miami started getting some hoops again, the game should have been dead even; or the Celts should have been ahead.
I think the Cs are fully onboard with CJM. And it's not just CJM this year. I'm sure Cassell and Charles Smith would be very vocal if they saw something that was sub-optimal.
One day we will all understand that the words coming out of a coaches mouth have a specific purpose….and is usually 98% not the actual truth.
I am sorry he let you down again. Condolences on the win and get ready, this is only just the start.
It's almost like Joe Mazzulla really really cares about winning, and is more knowledgeable about basketball than anyone here.
You said uh oh and not sure it’s the right move. I mean. You insinuated as much.
I don't think you called him a moron, but I think he (and most current NBA coaches) have earned the benefit of the doubt in terms of not missing obvious stuff like "probably Luke Kornet isn't the answer."
That's funny. I thought I insinuated that I wasn't sure if more double big play was the right move.
I've had about enough of your sunshine and rainbows, Mr. Pollyanna!
I am waiting to see the numbers on 3’s but it looked like the Heat missed a decent amount of open ones (I’d say around 6).
6 open 3s isn't many for an NBA game. And 28 total attempts, from a team that it knows it needs to shoot them, is impressive.
