Sure... but has Lebron listened to Bill Simmons and his dad critique "2nd Row Joe's" coaching in Game 1? He might learn something.
Joe Mazzulla officially named head coach
- Thread starter Beale13
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My biggest gripe about Joe has been his timeout usage—last night he was flawless on this.
Maybe there wasn't a time to do it, but I was surprised Kidd didn't pull Lively when he picked up his 4th foul as he then picked up his 5th foul not long after that. Maybe they didn't really care at that point, but I thought it a little strange.
I honestly didn't know what to think of CJM to start this season since last year was an odd situation for everyone - Ime's dismissal, the fact that the team was so good, the timeout usage. Happy to say that this year he rose to the challenge and then some (so far).
I've been a critic of CJM, way more last year than this year, but he has so improved his game management and sub patterns. And has become more comfortable in his public skin. He's a different dude marching to his own drummer. But he's smart enough to sometimes change the tune.
He had a pretty good game last night.
He had a pretty good game last night.
A few years back I observed that if you look at a winning team's box score, usually five or more players score in double digits.
Last night the Celtics had six and the Mavs had five.
I post this in the Mazzulla thread because it appears this team has bought into both his offensive and defensive schemes. Move the ball on offense and don't over help off the three point line on defense.
Last night the Celtics had six and the Mavs had five.
I post this in the Mazzulla thread because it appears this team has bought into both his offensive and defensive schemes. Move the ball on offense and don't over help off the three point line on defense.
I thought it strange after foul #4, but Lively had more than twice as many fouls as points in 18+ minutes. Might as well see if he can get it together, and either he does or the problem solves itself.
Joe used more TO's in the run of play than Kidd did. I was surprised to see the Celts had just 2 left midway thru the 4th quarter while the Mavs still had 3 remaining
I'm not going to say where Joe ends up in NBA coaching rankings if they win this series, but I will say that a lot of people will be uncomfortable with how high it is.
He's really, really good.
- Schemes: they shapeshift like crazy on both ends and are really creative, especially in micro ways
- Player buy-in: they are willing to morph over and over again to implement the schemes
- Mental toughness: the team rarely plays down, and also hangs with it when down, and also late in games
- Adjustments: they solve problems that other teams throw with brutal efficiency
He's really, really good.
- Schemes: they shapeshift like crazy on both ends and are really creative, especially in micro ways
- Player buy-in: they are willing to morph over and over again to implement the schemes
- Mental toughness: the team rarely plays down, and also hangs with it when down, and also late in games
- Adjustments: they solve problems that other teams throw with brutal efficiency
yeah I don't think Kidd is a good coach, but... what's he gonna do there... Lively has been his best big by a mile all playoffs, and he commits a ton of fouls. All you can do is hope the refs give him a break on the "don't want to give him 2 quick ones and effect the game" thinking.
Lively is really good at 3 things: (1) rim protection; (2) rim running; and (3) handling the ball in the middle of the court without being defensed. (3) is what sets him apart from most bigs and is super useful when Luka gets doubled. That's not to say that's all he offers but that's what he did really well against MIN.
The Cs took all 3 away.
From Mavs Moneyball, a big unstated compliment to CJM:
For at least a year or two now, the most “optimal” way to guard Doncic has been to play 2-on-2 with him in the pick and roll, stay home on shooters, do not trap or blitz, and live with the results. Let Doncic take contested floaters, midrange jumpers, or hell, give him some layups vs giving role players wide open threes or his centers easy lob dunks. The thought process is that while the Mavericks new-and-improved roster certainly has more talent and offensive juice than prior versions of Doncic’s Mavericks teams, the role players still aren’t the types of players to beat you in one-on-one or most closeout situations. Stay home on those players, cut off their oxygen, give Doncic no where to pass, and hope he can’t outscore you. It’s not an easy strategy to pull off, as being comfortable with a player scoring 30 (or 40, or 50, or 60) or more points isn’t something professional coaches want to allow. There’s a point of pride that’s natural, where even if a coach understands the assignment, seeing Doncic heat up can change everything. We’ve seen it in these playoffs, with the Clippers, Thunder, and Timberwolves all finding some success letting Doncic work without help defense in the pick and roll, only to get nervous, switch assignments, and watch as the Mavericks role players break the defense with open threes and lobs after the defense decides to put two on the ball.
In Game 1, the Celtics defense bent, but never broke. Doncic scored the ball well Thursday night, with 30 points on a decent 12-of-26 shooting performance. Inside the arc, Doncic feasted, going a perfect 5-of-5 at the rim and finishing a clean 8-of-14 on two pointers. Doncic even almost erased a 29-point first half deficit, when he drilled a pull up three with 4:28 left in the third quarter, pulling the Mavericks within eight at 72-64. Boston called a timeout and you could practically hear the entire Boston crowd tense up. Almost every other coach at that moment would have pulled the plug and start adjusting the defense to stop Doncic’s scoring bonanza. Except coming out of the timeout, Boston coach Joe Mazzulla didn’t send two. Dallas shot itself in the foot with two turnovers and a missed three on the next three possessions, but the Celtics didn’t force those with Doncic traps or blitzes. The Mavericks simply tried to attack with Kyrie Irving after Doncic dominated, and Irving couldn’t come through. From there Boston built the lead back up and never had to think about its defensive strategy again.
He’s doing great. It doesn’t hurt to have five all star level players near their prime as your starting lineup (I’m going KP as a starter)
Credit where credit is due: Simmons, in his podcast with his dad, honed in on the point that the C's came out of that timeout with Jrue on Doncic, whereas up to that point, Brown had been the primary defender. Luka basically stopped trying to score for a few minutes and deferred more to Kyrie and others as the C's rebuilt their lead.
I rewatched that part of the game after listening to make sure, and he's right. I've haven't heard this adjustment mentioned anywhere else.
People want to act like TS% is some advanced analytic too difficult for everyone to understand,while basic FG% is a good way to judge a player, it's embarrassing.
FG% = batting average
TS% = OPS
The analogy doesn't quite work, but it's close. There will come a time when people realize that FG% is woefully insufficient for discussing scoring efficiency, but we're not there yet. If Luka repeats his game 1 performance for the rest of the series (30 and 10 while shooting 46% from the field with a couple of steals), a lot of the talk coming out of the series will be how Luka was the best player, but his teammates just weren't good enough to compete with Boston. He wasn't terrible offensively, but to make up for his brutal defense (and brutal may be understating just how bad he was defensively), he has to be elite on offense, and he wasn't anywhere near that.
Right. And even going beyond TS%, offense isn't about one player's efficiency. It's about creating advantages that 5 players can use to put up a strong offensive rating (while not compromising defensive shape in transition, when there are misses).
A star shooting 50% TS and not creating advantages simply isn't being a star. Full stop. He's playing badly and not stressing the opposition.
I think Luka will play better in this series (we'll see how the knee goes, and how much energy defense takes out of him), but it wasn't a promising start.
It will be interesting to see if Luka has a positive +/- in any game this series.
Just eyeballing Luka's playoff game logs, it looks like DAL is something like 24-22 in the playoff games that Luka played in (49 games overall); of those 46 games, DAL has never won a game where Luka had a negative +/- and DAL has only lost 5 games where Luka was a positive +/- (LAC 2024 G4, Luka +10; DAL lost by 5; UT 2022 G4, Luka + 7, DAL lost by 1; LAC 2021 G3, Luka + 3, DAL lost by 10; 2024 LAC G1, Luka +3, DAL lost by 12; and 2024 OKC G4, Luka +1, DAL lost by 4).
Otherwise, as Luka goes +/-, so does DAL.
I liked the video that someone posted that also talked about how putting in zero effort off-ball on offense isn't good for your team, either. Luka is the king of empty stats.
The main issue with TS% (it's a small one) is that the 0.44 multiplier involves an assumption about the frequency of foul shots per posession
For sure it's not perfect, but it's miles more effective than straight FG%, without being overly complicated to calculate, understand and contextualize.
That’s bonkers; CJM came up with something that LeBron had never thought of before? And, like, it’s not just that LeBron is LeBron, he’s like four years older than Mazzulla too!
So much time has been spent thinking about how hard the transition on short notice must have been and trying to gauge how good he really is that I think we almost sorta forget: The Celtics had both him and Ime at the same time. This is just a ridiculously well run organization. As much as I enjoy their work, I almost wonder if they should be in charge of something more important. Like, I dunno; Asia. Or something.
Most people would trust POBOS with the city and/or commonwealth much more than the current lot of politicians.
They also had Hardy and Stoudemire on staff. It was an excellent group. They really should have beaten GS that year.
I've said this before ,but I really underestimated CJM last year. I do not think he did a good job from the perspective of the team's play and adjustments - though I fully acknowledge the difficult context he had.
Boy, has he shown this year he is a star coach in the making and Brad was right about him all along (and I was not). In addition to lovegtm's list above, the simplest thing he really gets is the math: this team truly plays the way Morey wanted his teams too, and at both ends, and that's CJM selling and exeucting the message.
His playoff adjustments and timeout usage have been great, and he's adjusted his rotations as well. It's a tremendously impressive coaching job thus far.
In my defense, I said at one point the optimistic case is that he's Spoelstra...starts off looking like a fill-in and turns out to be a star. I didn't see it last year, but he's very much on the path now. And beat Spoelstra to boot...
Boy, has he shown this year he is a star coach in the making and Brad was right about him all along (and I was not). In addition to lovegtm's list above, the simplest thing he really gets is the math: this team truly plays the way Morey wanted his teams too, and at both ends, and that's CJM selling and exeucting the message.
His playoff adjustments and timeout usage have been great, and he's adjusted his rotations as well. It's a tremendously impressive coaching job thus far.
In my defense, I said at one point the optimistic case is that he's Spoelstra...starts off looking like a fill-in and turns out to be a star. I didn't see it last year, but he's very much on the path now. And beat Spoelstra to boot...
Mazzulla's absolute best quality isn't his intellect or his work ethic. He's unafraid to try things even if it risks making him look "crazy" or unhinged to his critics.
Also, I fully expect him to revert to being "not the guy" as soon as they lose another game but maybe that's too conservative. He's been faded after a bad quarter during these playoff runs.
Also, I fully expect him to revert to being "not the guy" as soon as they lose another game but maybe that's too conservative. He's been faded after a bad quarter during these playoff runs.
True. Eek.
I was so disappointed for Brad when pro coaching didn’t work out for him; it seemed so perfect. But then it seemed weird to get “kicked upstairs”… to that particular position? Like, that’s not where you hide a guy you want to fire…
I was so wrong about so much. Guy was coaching Butler a little over 10 years ago. Players, coaches… guy has a scary eye for talent, and more so: What works together.
Everyone who matters is already under contract for next year too, right? So, bang out an extension or two and then, I dunno, learn to get good at that thing that people do in movies where they try to toss playing cards into a hat?
He’s probably get super good at it, too.
So my job is currently strategist for our company reporting directly to the CEO. The one thing he keeps saying is that I am willing to throw out wild ideas that get laughed out of meetings because I just come with them relentlessly. Occasionally they stick and they make big impact and occasionally they spin off a different idea from someone else that has more industry experience because I'm new to this industry. But yes, absolutely having that mentality to take risks in the face of laughs or heckles or the norm isn't easy, but when you have it, it's a certainly a skill that can separate things.
His entire job over the next 2-3 years is to convince ownership to invest in this team, above the cap, likely operating at a loss like the Warriors did. Potentially into a recession with higher interest rates and thus higher financing costs for a negative cash flow business. That’s no small hurdle.True. Eek.
I was so disappointed for Brad when pro coaching didn’t work out for him; it seemed so perfect. But then it seemed weird to get “kicked upstairs”… to that particular position? Like, that’s not where you hide a guy you want to fire…
I was so wrong about so much. Guy was coaching Butler a little over 10 years ago. Players, coaches… guy has a scary eye for talent, and more so: What works together.
Everyone who matters is already under contract for next year too, right? So, bang out an extension or two and then, I dunno, learn to get good at that thing that people do in movies where they try to toss playing cards into a hat?
He’s probably get super good at it, too.
From what I understand the White extension is done, so I think his second job is to find a successor for Al.
His 3rd job is finding a quality 7th and 8th guy for the playoffs. We’ve already seen situations where PP is unplayable. Ideally Hauser continues to improve but could become too expensive soon. Spring and Tillman were really interesting if they can continue to develop. He’ll likely need to hit on one or two late draft picks if this is going to be a dynasty.
From what I’ve been told Brad is a true pro. Trusts his staff. Gives them plenty of rope to add value. Give guidance/direction when needed. No reason to think this can’t be a 5 year run, but let’s lock down #1 over the next week.
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The biggest question with White isn't whether Brad can convince ownership to offer the extension, it's whether or not White accepts it. I believe Boston can only offer about a 4/120M extension this summer, and given the rising cap (and his durability), I would not be at all surprised to see White turn that down and become an UFA after next year. He seems to love it here, but this is likely his last chance at a big contract, which changes things for everyone.
I don't know how good your CEO is but on paper they are pretty awesome. And your skillset will serve you well as long as you have process folks around. Results people don't handle this approach well (most of our threads here deal with people who are questioning processes any time they yield adverse results).
Back to the boss aspect, Mazzulla's freedom is a product of Stevens leadership. We've all seen organizations that are run so as to not screw up careers. We should all be happy that isn't happening in Boston. Everything appears to be in the service of winning.
Honestly I think his best quality is that he never overreacts to things that aren't controllable. The biggest example is that sometimes you have a huge shooting variance game or half or even quarter, some coaches say "whelp need to change something" and Joe trusts the math. I also think that's true of things like runs based on shooting. LeBron mentioned something similar in the in-game stuff.... he's not going to get worked up about stuff unless it's that the team isn't playing the right way. He trusts the team, he trusts the system, he trusts the math, and he'll stick with it in the face of luck related swings, but he'll change things that are based on scheme, system, matchup etc, he just won't overreact.
My understanding from articles is the opposite from what you're suggesting with the bolded: Stevens decided he couldn't hack the travel and demanding schedule of being an NBA coach anymore, and wanted to spend more time at home with his family. So he planned to resign. By coincidence, Danny also planned to retire, or "retire" and move to Utah anyway. And it was Wyc who convinced Brad to stay within the organization and change roles, with the key selling point being the work/life balance and lower travel.
So he'd still do fine at coaching, in my opinion, he just didn't want to anymore. And perhaps once his kids are off to college and he's overseen a great run here, the college game will start sounding good to him again.
100 percent my sentiment. It has to be incredibly hard in practice to weather those spells when a crowded arena is bitching and moaning and you know you’re gonna get questions about ‘adjustments’ and ‘why didn’t you stay aggressive.’ Not every coach would follow suit.
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I'm guessing he meant to name Will Hardy as one of those people, in context.Ime was the good coach and Udoka was the guy who got fired?
I must be way lower than Ime on other people. Joe is way better imo, and I've felt for awhile that they sort of dodged a bullet getting him over Ime in the longterm.
I know people love that Ime brought them back to the Finals, but that offense was a SLOG whenever Tatum wasn't hitting everything. There were definitely personnel upgrades since, but even in Joe's turbulent first year, with similar guys, the offense took big steps forward.
I know people love that Ime brought them back to the Finals, but that offense was a SLOG whenever Tatum wasn't hitting everything. There were definitely personnel upgrades since, but even in Joe's turbulent first year, with similar guys, the offense took big steps forward.
I think a lot got complicated when word got out that CJM was the one actually behind that defense. So for people who don’t know that (assuming it’s true*), they’re going to appreciate Ime a lot more now than those who don’t credit him with the D.
There's another coach in NE this century who was sometimes ridiculed for doing these things but then everyone was like oh F he's actually outthinking the game.
Which, to bring it full circle, one can only do if they have full support from upstairs.
I do believe Ime contributed to a positive culture shift around accountability and focusing on the right things. And I think he would have gotten stale….putting aside whatever else he was doing off court.
x and o wise he has already maxed out—as we saw on finals.
it’s far from perfect but I wonder if history will say that pairing had some (only some— not a direct comparison) of Parcells as the culture changer and Belichick as the more sustainable tactical genius initially behind the scenes scene and then in front
I had to laugh yesterday when one of the callers on 98.5 gave two examples of CJMs.brilliance
1) Starting Horford instead of KP. “Who would have ever thought they would have done that?”
2) Playing Horford and KP together for a stretch. “Has anyone ever seen that before?”
I wanted to call in and ask that guy how he enjoyed watching his first Celtics game….
1) Starting Horford instead of KP. “Who would have ever thought they would have done that?”
2) Playing Horford and KP together for a stretch. “Has anyone ever seen that before?”
I wanted to call in and ask that guy how he enjoyed watching his first Celtics game….
It was my mistake and I meant to say that Brad hired both CJM and Ime.
Think Ime brought in Hardy.
I noticed this when it happened, and thought it was a completely new strategy but apparently it really took off during last season, according to this well-written analytical piece by… *check notes* Barstool Sports (?!).
View: https://twitter.com/statholesports/status/1799168540689502656
I’m not a huge devotee of fouling up 3/6 mostly because in those situations rebounding a miss is adjudicated by prison rules and offensive boards are much more likely than earlier in the game. In fact, that’s what happened to the Celtics on this possession if I recall correctly. However, I think it’s slightly EV+, and minor decisions like that add up over a game.
Also, even if Joe didn’t invent the strategy, most great coaches steal stuff all the time. He or someone on his staff did a great job of observing this and putting it into action.
I understand it’s an expression and I understand why, but “prison rules basketball”’as an expression always amuses me. Like… prison has a lot of fucking rules. And if you think there are a lot of “unwritten rules” in basketball, well, about prison…
Rule One: Thou shalt not do anything that causes basketball to be suspended for everyone.
Some of the other issues around contact are… not interesting.
Anyway, moving along, that’s an interesting thought of the different % on oreb in that situation. Seems like something numbers can be run on, but would still need to consider matchups… What might the tipping point be!
Rule One: Thou shalt not do anything that causes basketball to be suspended for everyone.
Some of the other issues around contact are… not interesting.
Anyway, moving along, that’s an interesting thought of the different % on oreb in that situation. Seems like something numbers can be run on, but would still need to consider matchups… What might the tipping point be!