Coach Joe's thoughts on the coming year

Saw this clip of of Coach Joe being interviewed by JJ Redick's "Old Man and the Three" podcast. Provides some insight into Joe's thinking. My take away is that this is a thoughtful guy, who is well aware of what's going on and is always looking for ways to improve the team's play. Doesn't match the unfair narrative that I heard last year that he's in over his head, or a deer caught in the headlights. But of course, I watch everything wearing my green glasses.

Shamrock1000 wrote:Saw this clip of of Coach Joe being interviewed by JJ Redick's "Old Man and the Three" podcast. Provides some insight into Joe's thinking. My take away is that this is a thoughtful guy, who is well aware of what's going on and is always looking for ways to improve the team's play. Doesn't match the unfair narrative that I heard last year that he's in over his head, or a deer caught in the headlights. But of course, I watch everything wearing my green glasses.

Shamrock,

I don't think it's just green glasses.

In my opinion, the criticism Mazzulla received last year was unjustified and over the top. His coaching credentials were solid and he was going to end up a head coach somewhere. Add to it that the complaint department was manned by those who have zero experience coaching an NBA team, or anything even close. In essence, those critics weren't qualified to carry Joe's lunch bucket, much less know how to run an NBA team.

Mazzulla was the right guy given the bizarre circumstances. Ownership could have signed any number of other experienced candidates if Mazzulla wasn't up to the job. They're not dumb; they got the right guy.

NY Celt what outstanding innovative things stand out to you that Coach Joe did or accomplished last year?

Did he implement any strategy to you that showed he was the right man for the job?

Cow,

I’m not sure why you feel there needs to be some innovative element to what Mazzulla accomplished last season. How does that make him the right guy for the job?

How about the fact that he…

Took over the team last minute before the season started with no off-season prep as the head coach.

Got to the postseason with the prior season’s starting center missing for something like 70 percent of the games.

Came within a game of the league’s best record.

Came within a game of the finals.


How about some critical team discipline numbers?


Coached the team into the top 5 in assist to pass percentage, with the starting point guard missing several key games.

In ‘22 - ‘23 the Celtics were the only team in the league to have more than 6 players average over 3 assists per game.

Almost 20 percent of the Celtics 3 point attempts in ‘22 - ‘23 under Mazzulla were wide open looks, 3rd most in the NBA.


Also…


Top 10 in drive FG percentage.

Top 10 in assists per game.

Points per game, 4th in the league.

Offensive rating, 2nd in the league.

Defensive rating, 3rd in the league.


Those stats don’t pop to the top without the guy standing on the sideline knowing how to drive the car.

NY Celt

Some very good stats that I was not aware of, I was just going with innovative because you seemed so really sold on him. I think great coaches are innovative to a degree, but no great coach can win without  talent and Joe was blessed with that in abundance and a great organization. I get he was promoted in a chaotic situation, if not for that situation who knows how long he would have stayed on as an assistant coach which is still a blessed gig.

Anyone who gets to even that level has to earn it and I’m sure he was a very good assistant to have Brad promote him to the head position. This is not about a fan having knowledge or coaching ability that would even compare to a professional in a position of the highest level. You mentioned other established coaches, I think if we had Jeff Van Gundy in Joes position last year; the team would have been better and looked a lot more poised in certain situations where you still have a young team with a young new coach learning on the job how to be a head coach at this level. Maybe an experienced veteran coach could have had some of the situations that have already been expounded on enough under better control, with better strategies; in other words more prepared for certain key situations that can dictate everything about the outcome of a game.

We had some great games where everything clicked last year, we had a 30 point and 40 point victories over Milwaukee and a 30 point win over Denver. This team easily could have won 60 games last year. We also had collapses against young teams a few times where we blew a 28 point lead. I think Joe himself would tell you he’s got to be better and hopefully he will be…..

Cow,

One could ask the same questions about the coach before Mazzulla:

What outstanding innovative things or strategy did he come up with?

It could be argued that he was horrible at the beginning with many calling for his head.  He then tightened the rotation, rode his top 6-7 players into the ground for the rest of the season, where key members of the rotation eventually broke down at critical times during the playoffs.

Outstanding.

Meanwhile, Mazzulla continues to evolve and learn.  Did you notice Mazzulla usually calls for a coach's challenge in the first half now?  With the new rules about teams getting a second challenge if the first one is successful, he is much quicker with the first challenge.  

I think we are in good hands now.

gyso wrote:Cow,

One could ask the same questions about the coach before Mazzulla:

What outstanding innovative things or strategy did he come up with?

It could be argued that he was horrible at the beginning with many calling for his head.  He then tightened the rotation, rode his top 6-7 players into the ground for the rest of the season, where key members of the rotation eventually broke down at critical times during the playoffs.

Outstanding.

Meanwhile, Mazzulla continues to evolve and learn.  Did you notice Mazzulla usually calls for a coach's challenge in the first half now?  With the new rules about teams getting a second challenge if the first one is successful, he is much quicker with the first challenge.  

I think we are in good hands now.

Haven’t seen all the games yet so far, saw a few delayed. I thought it took the players some time to get comfortable with Ime, but once the guys got it, it was fun to watch. He definitely improved/tweaked the defense, got it to another level we hadn’t seen under Brad. RWill and Smart had their best years and obviously Tatum, Brown, White and Al no slouches on defense either.

I actually thought we shot too many 3’s last year, sometime we looked great doing it, sometimes we over did it. I think with the additions of Holiday and Zinger, we can still hit 3’s and have a much more versatile offense. We still need a role player big that is a banger, teams know how great we are on the perimeter, they will attack our weaknesses. A spectacular offense that creates great looks that shares the ball and attacks in waves could be our calling card this year. We have so many options at back up wing, Hauser and Pritch could be vastly improved in their strengths, 2 J’s could have their best year even if they don’t score as much. Zinger is going to open up that floor for everybody, hey maybe I could even coach this team…????

Cow,

You know I like to make my point and then leave the conversation alone without going on. So I'll make this a quick exception.

In a way, I think you helped make my point.

You mentioned thinking we could have won 60 games last year with a more experienced coach. So if rookie head coach Mazzulla won just 3 fewer games, while on his first head coaching assignment, and the team gathered some of the stats that link to successful coaching as I mentioned, doesn't that help verify the high quality of the hire?

NYCelt wrote:Cow,

You know I like to make my point and then leave the conversation alone without going on. So I'll make this a quick exception.

In a way, I think you helped make my point.

You mentioned thinking we could have won 60 games last year with a more experienced coach. So if rookie head coach Mazzulla won just 3 fewer games, while on his first head coaching assignment, and the team gathered some of the stats that link to successful coaching as I mentioned, doesn't that help verify the high quality of the hire?

Well sure, but we kind of waffled at the end, but so did Milwaukee, neither team was on a hot run at the end of the season. I think the Bucks were resting players and confident they would be ready/strong in playoffs. I think Joe was better in regular season run, so for a first year coach, sure he did fine overall in regular season, especially as you pointed out RWill never got in as dominant a rhythm as the year before. 35 games wasn’t a good year for him. That’s probably why the defense wasn’t no 1 like the year before. In a lot of ways the offense was better, acquiring Brogdon had to help the offense, a veteran sniper who led the league or was in top 2 in 3 point shooting. Tatum was great, but still so up and down.

In the playoffs, I thought we should have beaten Hawks in 5, then Sixers went 7 as did Heat in a loss. I thought in playoffs his coaching needed to be better. Injury bug didn’t help as Brogdon was not the same player, but Heat didn’t have Herro, so was a wash as well in that series. Spolstra definitely put on a clinic, seemed to push the right buttons more often than Joe.

Off topic, but I was really looking forward to seeing RWill play with Zinger this year and how much he improved with a healthy summer finally. The best of Rob would have been devastating the way he can effect the defense and rebound and offensive rebound, but Holiday is a legit all star 2 way player, so behind the move.

I think I get what Cow is saying. Joe is an analytics based coach. Analytics is formulated to get the most wins over a season. The formulas incorporate swings in performance - ther will be some duds, but overall it should lead to outscoring your opponent. It is not a recipe to win a single fame or series. Additionally, analytics is based on seasonal play/performance, and thus some of its assumptions may not hold for the playoffs. In those high pressure singular situations, there is no evidence analytics performs better than a seasoned savvy coach. All that said, and one of the reasons I posted this video, is that Joe essentially acknowledged everything I just said, indicating a guy is still watching, thinking, and open to learning. I like that.