The Celtics’ predicament isn’t all on Joe Mazzulla. The players need to rediscover their pride to avoid an embarrassing sweep.

MY NOTE:  I've been fairly unrelenting in my criticism of Joe so I thought it would only be fair if I also post articles that spare him, a bit.


The Celtics’ predicament isn’t all on Joe Mazzulla. The players need to rediscover their pride to avoid an embarrassing sweep.



By Gary Washburn Globe Staff

Updated May 22, 2023, 8:18 p.m.



MIAMI — Monday was a beautiful day in the Brickell area of Miami, a day for the Celtics to refresh and reflect after their humiliating performance Sunday against the Miami Heat, and also a day for more concrete reasons why they are trailing this series 3-0.

This team has descended over the past few months, plummeting from a NBA championship favorite to an unstable bunch who cracked under the pressure of the Heat — no pun intended— in the past three games.

The Celtics have not improved since the All-Star Break. They have been relying solely on talent, meaning their once-daunting defense has dissipated into a bunch of unconnected individuals who relent at the first sign of pushback.


Privately, the Celtics have been stunned the Heat are playing so well. They have flipped the switch and the Celtics seem completely demoralized when they make the proper defensive play and Gabe Vincent, Max Strus, or Caleb Martin still hits the shot.


So now, a coach potentially fighting for his job, his livelihood, and his reputation has to encourage his players to drum up enough motivation and pride to avoid a sweep. But pride is a personal trait and it’s not something Mazzulla can coach into Jayson Tatum or Jaylen Brown in 48 hours.


Those two All-NBA players need to digest all the criticism they’re receiving and turn that into fuel for their best games of the series, or at least the desire to respond to Miami’s increased trash talking and showboating. A developing element to this series is the Heat’s voracious desire to humiliate the Celtics and the Celtics accepting such fate without much resistance.

The Celtics have never been considered a tough team, but they were resilient once upon a time, and comments from players continue to be, perhaps, an unintended indictment on Mazzulla’s leadership. Malcolm Brogdon, whose brutal honesty this season has been refreshing and his perspective fresh since he was not a member of last year’s team, admitted the Celtics have lost their culture over the past few months.


When he took over for Ime Udoka, Mazzulla immediately stressed offensive improvement, more 3-pointers, and more floor spacing. Now the Celtics have become offensively predictable, a team that is too 3-point reliant and just ignores midrange shots and easier 2-point scoring opportunities. And a team that prided itself on defense but has slipped considerably partly because of its emphasis on offense and partly because it allows offensive shortcomings to impact its desire to defend.

“I think in the Atlanta series, the Philly series, we got away with things that now are biting us,” Brogdon said. “So that’s definitely troubling. I think it’s mainly on the defensive end. We haven’t been consistently great all year long. That was the team’s identity last year and that slipped away from us. We’ve had spurts where we’ve been great defensively, but not consistently. We’ve struggled in every series we’ve played.

“Now we’re playing a team that’s playing as if they’re the best team in the league and they’re just incredibly disciplined, incredibly consistent. We’re a team that all year long has relied on making shots and when we don’t make shots, our defense wanes. It slips. It’s something we’ve tried to work on.”


Frustration has turned into questions of commitment and belief. The Heat are shooting 51.9 percent from the field and 47.8 percent from the 3-point line in the series. Vincent, Robinson, and Martin have combined for 28 3-pointers. The Celtics have made just 31 as a team. Those are discouraging numbers. Martin hit 84 3-pointers in 71 regular season games and yet had 10 in three games.


The more they pound the Celtics into oblivion, the more brash the Heat get. Jimmy Butler mimicked Al Horford’s timeout pose after Miami took a 23-point lead, with five Celtics walking past him but Horford the only one bold enough to utter a word in response.

The Heat are visibly trying to embarrass the Celtics and the Celtics are losing their pride and dignity in the process. Something has to change for Game 4.

“It’s a sense of understanding that it’s pride for everybody; it’s a team pride,” Mazzulla said. “It’s a pride that we’ve had throughout the year and we have to maintain. Yes, there is [pride] on a personal level, but we’re in this together. And we have to have that pride together.

“Coming into this series, it’s a test of discipline, a test of mentality and all of their guys are making shots right now. We have to be clearly defined with which ones we’re living with and which ones we’re taking away.”


It’s up to the players to determine their fate, regardless of Mazzulla’s influence. The players have to execute, close out on shooters, get back on defense, stop complaining about calls, and create good fortune instead of hoping for it.


In other words, the Celtics have to play like a team that knows it’s the best on the floor even if they don’t fully believe it. If they don’t believe they can turn this into a competitive series, what’s the use of even taking the floor Tuesday?

“There’s a lot of pride,” Brogdon said. “To wear the Celtics jersey. This is a very good team. We had a great regular season. We’ve shown moments of greatness. We just have to put it together. Losing separates people and divides people and this has been a frustrating series for everybody. We just have to win a game.”


Bob


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Brogdon is so classy. We are lucky to have him.

There have been reports that what has happened is that the Celtics got "tired of making believe they like each other".  Personally, I thought that report was just players who've had a very good season venting their frustrations at individual and collective failures this series, something all over us have, and are, doing too.  This quote by Jaylen makes those reports and hostility look wrong.  I mean, think about it, you've made it to the Conference Finals and that's when you attack your own?  Who knows about after all this is done, one way or another, but now?  Sounded like click-bait to me and this quote by Jaylen backs me up a bit.  They came out last night and played well, especially in the 3rd when you could just see they were trusting each other with the extra passes.


Brian Robb @BrianTRobb
yesterday
Jaylen Brown said the team was all together as a team last night before Game 4 but didn't want to give any more details.


Brian Robb @BrianTRobb
yesterday
Jaylen Brown: "We underperformed in the last three games and we heard all these stories about X, Y and Z. Who knows where they came from. 99 percent of them aren't true at all."


Bob


.

bobheckler wrote:
Brian Robb @BrianTRobb
yesterday
Jaylen Brown: "We underperformed in the last three games and we heard all these stories about X, Y and Z. Who knows where they came from. 99 percent of them aren't true at all."

Bob

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Good point.

https://sports.yahoo.com/joe-mazzullas-unexpected-timeout-extended-135853475.html


How Joe Mazzulla's unexpected timeout extended Celtics' playoff run


Chris Forsberg
Wed, May 24, 2023, 6:58 AM PDT·7 min read



MIAMI — Grant Williams couldn’t recall Joe Mazzulla’s third-quarter, mid-possession timeout in the immediate aftermath of the Boston Celtics' Game 4 triumph over the Miami Heat, which left everyone else within earshot incredulous.

In a season in which Mazzulla’s timeout usage — or lack thereof — was a constant storyline, the coach calling timeout to salvage a crumbling possession felt like a seminal moment. And, depending on how the rest of the Eastern Conference Finals play out following Boston’s second-half blitz to stave off elimination on Wednesday night, it might just be.


Here’s how it unfolded: The Celtics were down nine early in the third frame after a Jimmy Butler missed layup maddeningly turned into a Max Strus third-chance 3-pointer. The sequence felt like a microcosm of a series in which even Boston’s best defensive efforts were spoiled by Miami’s hot shooting.

But a pair of Jayson Tatum 3-pointers, just 23 seconds apart, breathed new life into the Celtics. Boston had a chance to tie when Jaylen Brown fumbled his dribble in the corner opposite the Boston bench and was immediately trapped by Butler and Kevin Love.

Brown probably would have escaped but Mazzulla wasn’t leaving anything to chance on this night. He screamed at crew chief Scott Foster in front of him for a timeout. Even his players were temporarily frozen in the moment, wondering why there had been a stoppage.

Mazzulla then grabbed his whiteboard and the Celtics produced a game-tying 3 when Al Horford made the extra pass to create a triple for a wide open Derrick White in the corner. Boston’s run eventually snowballed to an 18-0 burst. Isn’t that fitting in a season of “Unfin18hed Business” and the quest for Banner 18?


You can make the case that such a timeout shouldn’t feel like a moment. But it did. Mazzulla, whose preference to let his players trudge through trouble spots has bitten the team repeatedly, stepped outside his comfort zone after 103 games.

Mazzulla spent the 48 hours leading up to Game 4 in a blistering spotlight. After taking blame for Boston’s inexcusable dud in Game 3, talking heads spent two days pondering his coaching merits and whether the Celtics might have to dismiss the 34-year-old after the season because they couldn’t afford for him to learn on the fly on a team with immediate championship aspirations.

To be clear, Mazzulla deserves his fair share of criticism for some of Boston’s troubles this season. Boil it down and the job of a coach is to put their team in the best position to succeed. It was fair to question whether Mazzulla had consistently done that this season, including during parts of Boston’s playoff run.

But in a do-or-die situation, Mazzulla pitched pretty close to a perfect game.

It started in the aftermath of Game 3 when Mazzulla went to the podium and took blame for Boston’s pathetic effort. His players would later suggest the coach didn’t need to fall on that sword but, in doing so, Mazzulla eased the burden on his players and took the brunt of outside anger.

Mazzulla’s only plea in the aftermath of the Game 3 debacle was for his team to stay together. For Monday’s off day, Boston players and staff gathered for a team outing to Topgolf in Miami Garden and a dinner after. Brought together, Boston players had no choice but to address the 3-0 hole they had dug themselves. And the Celtics bubbled with an undeniable energy by the time the team gathered for shootaround on Tuesday morning.

Marcus Smart and Jaylen Brown went to the playbook of the 2004 Red Sox while uttering the, “Don’t let us get one,” line made famous by Kevin Millar before the local nine rallied out of a 3-0 hole against the New York Yankees in the American League Championship Series. How fitting that Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez were courtside in Miami.


It wasn’t just that one third-quarter timeout that highlighted Mazzulla’s steadying efforts in Game 4. The Heat trimmed Boston’s lead to five early in the fourth frame while Tatum rested (maybe Mazzulla’s only real misstep on the night). Once again, Mazzulla utilized a timeout to steady his squad.

Tatum, reinserted during that stoppage with 9:41 to play, hit a 19-foot fadeaway to bust the zone that had flummoxed Boston to start the frame and the Celtics quickly pushed their lead back to double figures.

"Tonight was the little things,” said Smart. "We trusted in each other, we believed in each other, continuously. Even when we were down, we continuously believed in each other, and that's what we've got to continue to do. No matter what we've got to continue to play the right way, continue to believe in each other, and let the chips fall where they may.”

Mazzulla has to walk a tight rope. By nature, he wants his team to be able to navigate high-pressure moments without his interference. He suggested throughout the season that having to endure those kinds of situations would make Boston better when the games mattered most.

And, yet, if this core has one consistent flaw over multiple seasons, it’s a tendency to lose their minds in moments of adversity. Boston kicked away Game 1 with late turnovers then watched its offense crumble as Jimmy Butler dominated the finish line of Game 2.

Even if it sometimes flies in the face of what he might prefer, Mazzulla has to be the adult in the room, even on a team where one of his starters is three years older than him. Mazzulla’s willingness to step outside that comfort zone in Game 4 and trust his ability to draw up momentum plays showed tremendous growth, and maybe saved Boston’s season.

Even if he’d never take credit for it.

"I think anytime you're in a do-or-die situation it forces you to build an awareness and perspective,” said Mazzulla. "It’s always been there, and I think just the perspective of understanding that, just a week ago, we had it, and so it's just fragile during these times. So, we just had to remind each other of that, and I thought the guys were pretty well connected.”

What did Mazzulla tell his team during that mid-possession timeout in the third quarter?

"I just told them we can't start the quarter off not getting a 50/50 ball and just keep your poise and execution, and I thought the guys had a great awareness, too, intentionality to what we were running,” said Mazzulla. "Spacing was good, execution was good.”

The coach was good, too. Mazzulla got tossed into a tough spot with impossibly high expectations when he was elevated to interim coach when Ime Udoka got suspended days before the 2022-23 season tipped. The Celtics didn’t help his cause by giving him a staff thin on NBA experience, particularly as Will Hardy left this summer to coach the Jazz and top assistant Damon Stoudamire departed in March to take over at Georgia Tech.

Mazzulla doesn’t have the luxury of making mistakes and learning from them in his early days on the job. Every misstep is magnified given Boston’s goals after falling short in the NBA Finals last season.

The Celtics still have an awfully long way to go to create history. No one will remember that third-quarter timeout if the Celtics simply get bounced on their home turf in Game 5.

But if they do pull off what no team in NBA history has done, that quick-trigger timeout by Mazzulla could turn into a career-defining moment. He needs to continue to steady his players moving forward.

In the biggest moment of the season, Mazzulla’s game management was as good as it’s been all season. All a coach can do is put their players in the best position to succeed. By stepping outside his comfort zone, that’s exactly what Mazzulla did.


Bob


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I have been appalled by the media frenzy in creating these rumors about the Celtics. But this is the new media world. No wonder I have been increasingly shutting them off.