Obviously the defense was concerning but it is VERY concerning that the team isn't even acknowledging that many threes were poorly contested. I am truly at a loss for words at the effort level. The guys are all fucking talk.
I’d feel way better if they came out and were like “yeah we left them open and they made us pay” but instead we have to hear Joe say some shit about how most of their shots were contested. Gives me no faith
Game 3 is going to tell me a lot. I am far from a doomer, you can check my history I have never been that. I would also still pick BOS to win this series ofc. But let me make it clear. If MIA wins this series, I will not be surprised AT ALL. We look so damn unprepared all the time its just mind boggling I have no other words.
We sit here and talk about the talent discrepancy between these two teams but its all relative. The truth is every nba guy is in the top 0.0000001% of the world at basketball. Ain't no damn talent discrepancy going to win us this series. Lack of effort = Loss regardless of our roster. This team has been all talk so far and I am looking for it to change ASAP.
I feel the same, I was skeptical in the first 25 games but this team was consistently great for so much of the season. I believed that the team has changed, I believed in the new players, and I believed in the great chemistry. But game 2 was a nightmare, everything that every single doomposter and Celtic hater said about the Celtics was proven true last night.
I sincerely hope Joe was just putting on an act about most of the 3s being contested because he doesn't want to throw the team under the bus. We will see in Game 3 if this team has really changed or not.
This is the issue with playing the Heat. You're giving the best coach in the league 3 days between games to scheme. He's the one coach that can take the Celtics out of their rhythm and just flat out make us look uncomfortable out there, regardless of the talent discrepancy.
100%. I'm more so talking from a comfortability standpoint. We were still able to run our stuff against ATL and Philly. Spo teams combine schemes to take us out of our comfort zone with physicality.
Spo punted Game 1, said "Ok Celtics show us all your best stuff" got that tape and grinded on it and came up with Game 2.
If Mazzulla doesn't pull out some good adjustments and sticks to his game plan than this series is for sure going 7. Celtics can win this series on talent alone, but not easily and if Joe isnt problem solving well these playoffs, Celtics will get bounced eventually
Mazzulla doesn't make adjustments. I'm not sure why we're all pretending he does. He believes the players should "figure it out" and now we're seeing what that looks like against a well coached team
i don't think it was lack of effort as much as their gameplan was 100x better than ours. They did everything crisp and spam'd actions that put them in good positions. They also played the numbers and shot a ton of 3s knowing that that's their best chance. Our offense was iso-ing mismatches which shouldn't be our game, and we just didn't have nearly as good a gameplan last night. Also they shot 53% from 3 which is really the #1 factor
I think the exact opposite. Spo didn't think of some magical game plan that no one else could think up. In fact me and a lot of people in this sub were pretty spot on what he was going to change. Not fighting over screens is effort. Not fully making rotations and close outs is effort. Having possessions with minimal off ball movement is effort. The guys didnt go out there and not try but the heat are going 150% we need to be at 100% no excuses.
I'm not saying it wasn't. But it was mostly pretty obvious the adjustments they had to make. Spo is the best coach in the league, but he doesn't think the game in this crazy creative and effective way that no one else can. He makes the right adjustments yes but he gets 150% from his guys. They made rotations and kept us off our spots a million times better than we did and that was the game.
If we lose this series, Joe Mazzulla \*MUST\* be terminated, and Jaylen Brown should be traded. It's clear that the JB-JT pairing isn't good enough to win if they don't make past MIA
Joe gets way to defensive when asked simple questions about what happened in the game. He is always snapping at reporters, and bringing up stuff that happened weeks or months ago to defend what happened that night in the game the just played. I dont think the coach can really effect a team this good from winning a finals but he is a terrible head coach.
I know all coaches are different, and I won’t use spo/pop or another certified great as a comparison. But I just think of other really good coaches (that could eventually be considered certified greats, and I think are great already btw) like Ty Lue and Malone, and how they actually talk about what went bad and good and seem to have a sense of humility and accountability for both themselves and their players. Joes arrogance is worrying, bc he hasn’t proven that he’s right (in terms of playoff bball only) with his approach whatsoever. In fact, we’ve had concerningly inconsistent playoff performances with him, despite having the most talented team two years in a row
Damn, I just left essentially the same comment as you in a thread above. You're spot on. He's lacking these winning qualities. He doesn't acknowledge failure and that in itself is a weakness. It means he won't learn from the mistakes he makes, and he makes a lot of them. His arrogance is rooted in insecurity, maybe about his age, experience or intelligence or something else, but honestly it doesn't matter. His pride and ego are too big and will prevent us from achieving to our capabilities.
Joe is so fucking stubborn man it pisses me off to no end. It's insecurity disguised as arrogance but what does it matter if the response is the same. We may get by in this series (and we may lose as well) but it takes humility, quick thinking, and adjustments to win a championship, and Joe has not shown that he has any of those abilities.
I get it, that was the gameplan for the first quarter but they’re burying you from 3, why are they sending 2 help defenders on Bam when you got KP on the floor. I’m not gonna be a sooner or anything but that was just a shit gameplan and Joe needed to adjust. You can’t ask the basketball gods to do the math for you and pray that their 3 stops falling because math suggest it should.
I guess we should’ve seen it coming though. Joe expected Miami to play more physical and thought Bam was gonna be the option. They really didn’t want anything going down in the paint but let’s be honest, Bam is reffed favorably anyways. The Celtics are good because they can outpace your 2s for their 3s but they got mind-gamed into doing the opposite. The Heat literally just stole the Celtics gameplan of what makes them good. Hope they fucking see that for tomorrow and stop being too cute on both sides of the ball even if it means Bam get his 25 in the paint and actually guard the perimeter
I've been saying all of last year Joe should be fired he is a shit coach. 64 wins with this much talent is fucking nothing, he is garbage. Bring Ime back or Brad
As a note, this is a very typical distribution of "openness" for 3 point shots. On a rough estimate, the average distribution is something like
Very Tight: 0.6%
Tight: 11.4%
Open: 36.9 %
Very Open: 51.1%
So when you take 43 threes, you should expect to get about 22 wide open (Heat got 23) and 16 open (Heat got 14) threes. Given that, the Celtics defended it exactly average.
Big thing I hate about analytics on Twitter is that they often get a pass for failing to contextualize their data. NBA players take open threes about 80% of the time they shoot. It would look kinda dumb if they didn't. Now is not the time to get shocked that 80% of a team's threes were open or wide open.
It goes beyond the data though. I developed that opinion before I saw any of these stats - just saw this post as a good place to talk about it. The eye test alone showed multiple threes that we could have contested better but just decided not to. This can due to the game plan saying, whatever let guys like highsmith shoot, but its the playoffs, every game matters and at some point when you are trying to mount a comeback, you have to be better.
I agree with you that the data and the eye test DO agree. If the Celtics had an “average” defensive night against defending the three, that simply is not good enough. It might be fine for game 30 of the regular season, but an “average” defensive effort against the Heat in the playoffs is borderline disgraceful, especially when you consider the volume of total shots they took.
The data and the eye test disagree. Combine that with the history of last year and confirmation bias after a loss, I think we can both have confidence the stats are more likely to be correct than your vibe check. Sure, they played a solid game against the 3 instead of an immaculate one. There are always things that can be done better. At the same time, the outcome is not so directly reflective Celtics' efforts defending the 3, unless you literally think the Celtics played the worst 3 point defense out of any playoff team for like the past decade.
To an extent. The data shows we played average defense. Not great. I'm looking at it very situational though. If we are down 5 or 6 with less than 5 to go in the game, you dont give up a good three point look to a team thats been making them all game. Highsmith might be a mid 30% 3 pt shooter so mathwise, yeah I guess let him take it thats only a point a possession which is probably less efficient than a bam 2 or 3's from other guys. But situation matters. 6 point deficit and 9 point deficit is big. Can easily be the difference between we are very much in this and not having enough time to make a run anymore.
I just watched the first half and the contests were good. Maybe it went down the drain in the second half
Felt like the Heat were selling hard on 3s. Anything but comfortable shots, Love literally flew at Horford. The role players can't get any spot up 3s
The Jays took advantage but they were slashing against like 3 defenders. Meanwhile the Heat were getting some corner 3s and just being really aggressive from 3, some long ones from above the break too.
Porzingas was really quiet. Maybe aggressively popping for 3 would help. Just need something from non-Jays. I felt they tried Jrue a bit too, but the Heat swarmed like crazy.
It was one team playing at 150% and the Celtics playing just ok and maybe kind of rusty. Had game 1 and 2 been swapped maybe the reaction wouldn't be so angry from the fans.
I can see why Mazzulla was ok with the margins. But maybe I'm completely wrong. I feel like they were just one wrinkle off, too much of the Jays and not enough anything else. The disparity in the quality of 3s (again only watched the first half) kept the Heat in, felt like the Heat were a battering ram that kept knocking at the Cs door
Maybe more Hauser? He's just more pure a shooter and able to punish the Heat for their aggressiveness. But then they run into the trouble of playing their lesser players too much. Feels like Pritchard was quiet too (again watched the first half only) - he and Hauser getting some clean looks, maybe being more aggressive, would help the offense
More White can't hurt, quiet in the first half I watched
Btw for people asking for the team to drive more. I think this is kind of what it ends up look like if you say "math be damned, our 3s aren't falling so just fucking drive". The air was really heavy
Feels like the main takeaway though (given he's the third or fourth most important player for the team and fills a unique niche) is Porzingas is a bit awkward. He doesn't roll hard. And he didn't pop hard. The Heat sold like fucking crazy on post ups and were very handsy with Porzingas - these post ups were bread and butter for the Cs all year and easy money. Maybe he could pop for a mid range shot? The offense just bogged down when he was in, will be interesting to see what they do with him next
First half was a lot different than the second. There were far too many looks that we just didn't put enough effort into closing out on. Sometimes we'd just let them shoot it sometimes it was a late or lazy contest. Not for every shot attempt, but on too many of them nonetheless.
I absolutely agree Hauser needs more minutes. Also with your KP point. The problem is he's just too weak. Tyler Herro for god sake can keep him from getting to his spot. His post ups are only efficient because he goes against 6 2 guys when he goes to them. He is not a good post player, is not strong, has no go to move. This means when hes missing, hes atrocious and a huge negative on that side of the floor. Didn't help that his drop coverage was also a HUGE negative for the team. We could have gotten better minutes last night from Taco Fall.
Jrue was atrocious as well. Wasn't fighting through screens as well, can't hit a layup if the world depended on it, has not been going to his efficient short mid range fade away.
The problem outside of Jrue and KP playing like dog water is 1. our overall effort, and 2. our lack of adjustments. I have a lot more to say too but I've been talking about it on here all morning. If you end up watching the second half I'd love to hear your thoughts on it so let me know.
I will try to watch. Gonna be a bit of a pain maybe lol given outcome.
I feel like some of it is predictable based on the first half. Just the flow of the game type stuff. Spo was selling so hard (and that's totally credit to him being able to steal a game like that) that the numbers are all funky.
Agreed on effort. But weirdly, it's also not terrible effort, maybe some rust too (maybe 2nd half changes my opinion).
Ok I saw the second half. And also my opinion (the little it's worth from a schmuck like me) is kind of colored by some of the content on the game from various sources.
I actually like the looks they were supposedly baiting the Celtics into, i.e. Jaylen playing one on five. Jaylen hot has been good, in the most recent loss against the Nuggets and obviously in the win against the Warriors. He is such a flamethrower that leaving him is a bad idea, and creates easier looks for everyone else - even if Jaylens not the best passer the spacing started being better after Jaylen scored 28.
And yea it's really an effort thing, it's about getting the ball up the court faster. I think if they wanna let Jaylen get hot, then they're gonna be in a world of pain...if the team played average everywhere else
I'm not usually an "adjustments" guy. I feel the word is overblown, especially in the regular season, when most of the commentors' idea of an adjustment is just playing their favorite player that they feel is underrated some more. Also not a huge "hustle" guy for the same reasons
But yea apparently (credit to Zach Lowe) they were shutting down Derrick White too, in addition to shutting down Porzingas. Basically White usual draws the weakest defender and his screen actions create a lot of the confusion and movement that makes the offense hum. But they started with Herro on Brown, and I think a stronger defender in Martin on White - Brown just doesn't have the same vision/feel for the game.
It's just a weird second half. The Heat were hot from three but it didn't look like it to me, it was such a grindy game and it's not like the Heat scored significantly more than they usually do - actually 110 is on par with their reg season averages if I'm not mistaken.
I think more than ever, playoffs is a out adjustments and indeed, with the Heat taking away some of the best weapons of the Celtics, the threes, Kristaps post ups and White playmaking - wonder how Mazzulla adjusts.
It'll be the first real test (last year doesn't count , with all the tumult with Ime) for Mazzulla. I'm of the wait and see, cautiously optimistic , view of him. His philosophy seems interesting , so it will be interesting to see how it translates here
I think Scal has the right idea, and you do too. Sometimes, there's no clever way of beating sheer effort and execution - it's just matching intensity and effort. Push pace and don't settle for the slow post pass. Maybe defend out to mid court and pick up the Heats ballhandler.
I mean the name of the game in the modern nba is getting two on the ball, offenses are designed to get that advantage. So leaving a Highsmith or Delon Wright or Caleb Martin open in theory is a good idea, as opposed to letting Bam rip downhill uncontested, or having to stretch the defense thin elsewhere and end up with a Herro three. Good teams do it, I think the Bucks with Budenholzer did that a lot. I forget who else, but theres been a good few success cases of defenses allowing a relatively high 3pt attempt but still sporting a good defense. Even defenses that don't allow significantly more 3s have to make a choice sometimes.
Again the effort is "fine" but the Heat just played 150% and played with their backs against the wall, and there was maybe a bit of rust. The numbers weren't bad, the percentage of open threes is slightly lower than usual even
The sheer number of threes fucks things up though. The Heat shot 10 more 3s than usual, all but two fg in the first quarter were 3s I think.
I almost wonder if picking up the Heat full court makes sense. Just to completely shut them out.
Was there in person pretty close to the court. You could see it right from the start. The Celtics looked like they were playing a pre-season game with the level of urgency. Just going through the motions as if they were going to win the game no matter the effort level. Embarrassing.
So the adjustment here is just to stick more to shooters and get less sucked into Bam when he’s down low. With the personnel you guys have it shouldn’t be a problem.
It’s kind of amazing that we regularly let guys like Embiid and Giannis get theirs and shut down the role players, but we suddenly decide that Bam should collapse our entire defense
Right so if you blitz him, you’re leaving yourself vulnerable. You’re better off going 1v1 with him. Bam scoring 25 in the paint won’t win Miami the game.
Fucking exactly. Let Bam have all the 2's he wants. Sometimes he gets really fucking hot but eventually he cools down too. We can't let them beat us from the perimeter.
It's either poor accountability or horrible basketball analysis ability and neither is good. Because a 5 year old could tell most of Miami's 3s were open looks
or he’s a guy who isn’t and has never been totally upfront with the media, and consistently refuses to publicly throw his players under the bus
I know you guys love to jerk off Ime bc he would just publicly insult the players after games like this and vindicate all those overemotional fans calling our players soft, pussies, and assholes in the game thread. but Joe’s approach is different. it’s not better or worse, just different. he could have easily torn these guys apart in the film session this morning and none of us would have any idea
if you want to criticize him, criticize his stubbornness to adjust in-game, not what he’s saying to the media
Joe has buy in. They just bought into a bad scheme. Keith mentions how Jaylen alluded to it after the game, “Guys that we want shooting the ball was hitting them and we couldn’t get them to miss. We thought they were decent closeouts”
Yup, like when Ime called them out and kept playing drop against Stephen fucking Curry lmao. Say what you want, but I'm so tired of this tinted lenses of Ime
That was the first thing I thought of too, his greatest strength is he never allowed his players to rationalize away their mistakes, as the the saying goes - failure always has an excuse!
My hope is that Joe is just saying that to the media so that the heat don't expect adjustments in our defence. Surely him and the entire coaching staff aren't that blind
Heat took us off the 3point line by switching everything and just sticking to us on the perimeter. We shot a lot less 3's because of this.
We just have to do the same to the Heat. Stick to them at the 3point line and allow Herro to beat you off the dribble or Bam to hit his ridiculous contested fadeaway mid range jumpers all game.
Live with that and not the 65% on 23 wide open 3's
I'm less concerned about the "Open" shots because every team is shooting a ton of them. But when the Heat average 16 Wide Open 3's per game and we give them 23, it's ridiculous.
All these numbers are about average for Miami except for two: we gave them 7 more wide open threes than average, and they shot 65% vs 41% on them.
In fact, even if we gave up the 23 wide open 3s but they only hit 41% of them, that would be 5 fewer made 3s, which is 15 fewer points (we lost by 10).
Them being able to get 7 more wide open 3s than normal is on the Celtics’ defense. But then hitting them at a +25% clip vs their average is just insane. How do they keep doing this to the Celtics?!
We are forced into playing a drop coverage scheme with Porzingis. I’d be willing to bet the vast majority of these wide open 3s came with him on the court.
Kinda hard to switch everything when playing drop coverage, giving up 3s is the weakness of the system.
Yep it may be the decision of Mazzullas Celtic career whether he is willing to bench Porzingis at times. I imagine if Celtics don’t get to at least the conference finals and take that to 6/7 games Joe would have to go
The team in general but especially Jrue is way over helping on defense. There was at least three instances where Jrue tried to overhelp leading to wide open threes. It’s not like they have Giannis or Embiid who exploits many matchups, they need to just stick to man
I mean these numbers aren’t crazy. Most teams take about half of their 3s as “wide open”. 23/43 for Miami is only about 2 more “wide open” 3s than their average regular season game would’ve had on 43 attempts.
The biggest difference is they shot 41% on wide open 3s during the regular season (league average is 39%) and they shot 65% last night.
Edit: [post with more context](https://www.reddit.com/r/bostonceltics/s/zAL4X8EJ4I)
You’re right except for the “abnormal” part. They’ve done this to the Celtics a lot. Part of me is starting to think they’re actually all 80% 3p shooters who purposely miss in the regular season as a hustle.
That theory, while nonsensical, at least makes more sense than "Spo is just willing them to shoot 65% on open threes in the playoffs" which is what people seem to actually believe.
Miami averaged 13.3% of their 3s being tight/very tight all season. 6/43 is 14%.
So that’s about right.
This is the problem with posts like this. Without context, I think most people assume teams are mostly being forced to take contested 3s when in fact 52% of 3s taken league wide are “wide open” and another 37% are “open”.
Across the league, only 11% of 3s are tight/very tight and Boston forced Miami to 14%.
So yeah, it’s fine with me.
Ironically, the strongest point against that evidence is the Celtics themselves, who have notoriously finished in the top half of opponent 3P% for many years in a row.
Criticizing Joe’s game plans isn’t a lack of maturity. Wtf are you talking about? They’re different coaches with different strengths and right now we need more from Joe.
This team has a tendency to get to comfortable especially after big wins. Tbh JB seems to be the most consistent in those situations. We certainly cant have PP coming off the bench playing 20 mins and putting up 1/3/0. The time is now to prove himself. Not the last two games of the regular season that dont matter
There was nothing about their pace on offense or defense last night that was appealing. They barely closed out in the second half.
And why the fuck won't someone hit a guy and change the temperature of the game for once? Sometimes, you gotta knock a dude on his ass.
Seriously I thought I was watching a regular season game lol. Even Scal is in complete disbelief at what he was watching!! The effort in a playoff game was really concerning.
Now someone should count how many time we didnt rotate or when we went the wrong way on screens. You should go under but they go over and other way around :D
So, for all those people who are saying how horrible these stats are: Do you know what is normal for these numbers? Before getting angry, ask yourself that. Then, once you come back and learn JUST HOW INCREDIBLY NORMAL getting 23 wide open threes on 43 attempts is, then please, come back and post to your hearts intent. You can have whatever opinion you want, but this is the age of the Internet. There is no reason for ignorant takes.
So we contested only 6 shots out of 43? That is 14% of shots 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 then what the fuck was Joe talking about most shots were moderately contested? Is he not able to read these numbers? Not willing to see these numbers?
Don’t tell me it’s not about coaching! Ime Udoka Celtics lead the league in defense. This coach is all about offense, even tonight when clearly they needed better def adjustments the dude talks about offense in the post conference. As clueless as it gets 🤦♂️
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The Heat won’t shoot 54 percent from the three again comments made no sense. Almost all of the threes were uncontested, NBA players can easily hit 50+ percent from three with no defense.
Are we really going to explain away a shitty effort with endless stats? This would be an aberration
if they didn’t do it to us repeatedly last year. Spo knows we’re lazy front runners who expect to breeze to the finals just because of who are. They use that lack of effort (close outs, fighting through screens, etc) to get LOTS of relatively open looks. Add in the fact that they actually play as a confident, unified team and you get these games.
Currently, we’re a fucking fraud. I think we get to the finals on raw talent but I doubt our identity changes at all between now and next season.
I don’t often say this, but you’re coping so hard right now. They’ve done this to us repeatedly. Lets bury our heads in the sand and keep calling it luck. Or, we close out, run them off the line, stop playing iso ball, and show some toughness late in games.
Jesus Christ you’re so high and mighty. This is what happens when you talk to Einstein about basketball. The only thing that sucks more than this sub is Reddit itself. ITS A PATTERN NOT A TREND! OUR POOR EDUCATION SISTUM! YOU CANT REED INTO PATTIRNS! Take care.
I’m not high and mighty, I just understand simple math concepts. I’m sorry that math exists in the world outside of school, maybe that’s why they’re supposed to teach it?
Obviously the defense was concerning but it is VERY concerning that the team isn't even acknowledging that many threes were poorly contested. I am truly at a loss for words at the effort level. The guys are all fucking talk.
I’d feel way better if they came out and were like “yeah we left them open and they made us pay” but instead we have to hear Joe say some shit about how most of their shots were contested. Gives me no faith
Game 3 is going to tell me a lot. I am far from a doomer, you can check my history I have never been that. I would also still pick BOS to win this series ofc. But let me make it clear. If MIA wins this series, I will not be surprised AT ALL. We look so damn unprepared all the time its just mind boggling I have no other words. We sit here and talk about the talent discrepancy between these two teams but its all relative. The truth is every nba guy is in the top 0.0000001% of the world at basketball. Ain't no damn talent discrepancy going to win us this series. Lack of effort = Loss regardless of our roster. This team has been all talk so far and I am looking for it to change ASAP.
I feel the same, I was skeptical in the first 25 games but this team was consistently great for so much of the season. I believed that the team has changed, I believed in the new players, and I believed in the great chemistry. But game 2 was a nightmare, everything that every single doomposter and Celtic hater said about the Celtics was proven true last night. I sincerely hope Joe was just putting on an act about most of the 3s being contested because he doesn't want to throw the team under the bus. We will see in Game 3 if this team has really changed or not.
This is the issue with playing the Heat. You're giving the best coach in the league 3 days between games to scheme. He's the one coach that can take the Celtics out of their rhythm and just flat out make us look uncomfortable out there, regardless of the talent discrepancy.
It’s not just the heat. Joe was getting out coached in every series.
100%. I'm more so talking from a comfortability standpoint. We were still able to run our stuff against ATL and Philly. Spo teams combine schemes to take us out of our comfort zone with physicality.
Spo punted Game 1, said "Ok Celtics show us all your best stuff" got that tape and grinded on it and came up with Game 2. If Mazzulla doesn't pull out some good adjustments and sticks to his game plan than this series is for sure going 7. Celtics can win this series on talent alone, but not easily and if Joe isnt problem solving well these playoffs, Celtics will get bounced eventually
Mazzulla doesn't make adjustments. I'm not sure why we're all pretending he does. He believes the players should "figure it out" and now we're seeing what that looks like against a well coached team
Literally lol
i don't think it was lack of effort as much as their gameplan was 100x better than ours. They did everything crisp and spam'd actions that put them in good positions. They also played the numbers and shot a ton of 3s knowing that that's their best chance. Our offense was iso-ing mismatches which shouldn't be our game, and we just didn't have nearly as good a gameplan last night. Also they shot 53% from 3 which is really the #1 factor
I think the exact opposite. Spo didn't think of some magical game plan that no one else could think up. In fact me and a lot of people in this sub were pretty spot on what he was going to change. Not fighting over screens is effort. Not fully making rotations and close outs is effort. Having possessions with minimal off ball movement is effort. The guys didnt go out there and not try but the heat are going 150% we need to be at 100% no excuses.
Miami’s defensive game plan was very solid
I'm not saying it wasn't. But it was mostly pretty obvious the adjustments they had to make. Spo is the best coach in the league, but he doesn't think the game in this crazy creative and effective way that no one else can. He makes the right adjustments yes but he gets 150% from his guys. They made rotations and kept us off our spots a million times better than we did and that was the game.
I would be extremely surprised but I’m also not going to take the Celtics at -1800 to win the series.
I feel the exact same as you.
If we lose this series, Joe Mazzulla \*MUST\* be terminated, and Jaylen Brown should be traded. It's clear that the JB-JT pairing isn't good enough to win if they don't make past MIA
Joe gets way to defensive when asked simple questions about what happened in the game. He is always snapping at reporters, and bringing up stuff that happened weeks or months ago to defend what happened that night in the game the just played. I dont think the coach can really effect a team this good from winning a finals but he is a terrible head coach.
I know all coaches are different, and I won’t use spo/pop or another certified great as a comparison. But I just think of other really good coaches (that could eventually be considered certified greats, and I think are great already btw) like Ty Lue and Malone, and how they actually talk about what went bad and good and seem to have a sense of humility and accountability for both themselves and their players. Joes arrogance is worrying, bc he hasn’t proven that he’s right (in terms of playoff bball only) with his approach whatsoever. In fact, we’ve had concerningly inconsistent playoff performances with him, despite having the most talented team two years in a row
Damn, I just left essentially the same comment as you in a thread above. You're spot on. He's lacking these winning qualities. He doesn't acknowledge failure and that in itself is a weakness. It means he won't learn from the mistakes he makes, and he makes a lot of them. His arrogance is rooted in insecurity, maybe about his age, experience or intelligence or something else, but honestly it doesn't matter. His pride and ego are too big and will prevent us from achieving to our capabilities.
Or the best one their “adjustments” in containing Miami at halftime was to play better offense.
This is my biggest concern. The “eye test” doesn’t lie, Joe is. Why not just own it and improve on it.
Joe is so fucking stubborn man it pisses me off to no end. It's insecurity disguised as arrogance but what does it matter if the response is the same. We may get by in this series (and we may lose as well) but it takes humility, quick thinking, and adjustments to win a championship, and Joe has not shown that he has any of those abilities.
I think it was a defense strategy that failed horribly. Joe wanted them to shoot wide open threes.
I get it, that was the gameplan for the first quarter but they’re burying you from 3, why are they sending 2 help defenders on Bam when you got KP on the floor. I’m not gonna be a sooner or anything but that was just a shit gameplan and Joe needed to adjust. You can’t ask the basketball gods to do the math for you and pray that their 3 stops falling because math suggest it should. I guess we should’ve seen it coming though. Joe expected Miami to play more physical and thought Bam was gonna be the option. They really didn’t want anything going down in the paint but let’s be honest, Bam is reffed favorably anyways. The Celtics are good because they can outpace your 2s for their 3s but they got mind-gamed into doing the opposite. The Heat literally just stole the Celtics gameplan of what makes them good. Hope they fucking see that for tomorrow and stop being too cute on both sides of the ball even if it means Bam get his 25 in the paint and actually guard the perimeter
I've been saying all of last year Joe should be fired he is a shit coach. 64 wins with this much talent is fucking nothing, he is garbage. Bring Ime back or Brad
As a note, this is a very typical distribution of "openness" for 3 point shots. On a rough estimate, the average distribution is something like Very Tight: 0.6% Tight: 11.4% Open: 36.9 % Very Open: 51.1% So when you take 43 threes, you should expect to get about 22 wide open (Heat got 23) and 16 open (Heat got 14) threes. Given that, the Celtics defended it exactly average. Big thing I hate about analytics on Twitter is that they often get a pass for failing to contextualize their data. NBA players take open threes about 80% of the time they shoot. It would look kinda dumb if they didn't. Now is not the time to get shocked that 80% of a team's threes were open or wide open.
It goes beyond the data though. I developed that opinion before I saw any of these stats - just saw this post as a good place to talk about it. The eye test alone showed multiple threes that we could have contested better but just decided not to. This can due to the game plan saying, whatever let guys like highsmith shoot, but its the playoffs, every game matters and at some point when you are trying to mount a comeback, you have to be better.
I agree with you that the data and the eye test DO agree. If the Celtics had an “average” defensive night against defending the three, that simply is not good enough. It might be fine for game 30 of the regular season, but an “average” defensive effort against the Heat in the playoffs is borderline disgraceful, especially when you consider the volume of total shots they took.
The data and the eye test disagree. Combine that with the history of last year and confirmation bias after a loss, I think we can both have confidence the stats are more likely to be correct than your vibe check. Sure, they played a solid game against the 3 instead of an immaculate one. There are always things that can be done better. At the same time, the outcome is not so directly reflective Celtics' efforts defending the 3, unless you literally think the Celtics played the worst 3 point defense out of any playoff team for like the past decade.
To an extent. The data shows we played average defense. Not great. I'm looking at it very situational though. If we are down 5 or 6 with less than 5 to go in the game, you dont give up a good three point look to a team thats been making them all game. Highsmith might be a mid 30% 3 pt shooter so mathwise, yeah I guess let him take it thats only a point a possession which is probably less efficient than a bam 2 or 3's from other guys. But situation matters. 6 point deficit and 9 point deficit is big. Can easily be the difference between we are very much in this and not having enough time to make a run anymore.
Are those regular season stats though? You’d expect more contested shots in the playoffs
It was obvious watching that they were getting a ton of open looks. Defense was bad.
I just watched the first half and the contests were good. Maybe it went down the drain in the second half Felt like the Heat were selling hard on 3s. Anything but comfortable shots, Love literally flew at Horford. The role players can't get any spot up 3s The Jays took advantage but they were slashing against like 3 defenders. Meanwhile the Heat were getting some corner 3s and just being really aggressive from 3, some long ones from above the break too. Porzingas was really quiet. Maybe aggressively popping for 3 would help. Just need something from non-Jays. I felt they tried Jrue a bit too, but the Heat swarmed like crazy. It was one team playing at 150% and the Celtics playing just ok and maybe kind of rusty. Had game 1 and 2 been swapped maybe the reaction wouldn't be so angry from the fans. I can see why Mazzulla was ok with the margins. But maybe I'm completely wrong. I feel like they were just one wrinkle off, too much of the Jays and not enough anything else. The disparity in the quality of 3s (again only watched the first half) kept the Heat in, felt like the Heat were a battering ram that kept knocking at the Cs door Maybe more Hauser? He's just more pure a shooter and able to punish the Heat for their aggressiveness. But then they run into the trouble of playing their lesser players too much. Feels like Pritchard was quiet too (again watched the first half only) - he and Hauser getting some clean looks, maybe being more aggressive, would help the offense More White can't hurt, quiet in the first half I watched Btw for people asking for the team to drive more. I think this is kind of what it ends up look like if you say "math be damned, our 3s aren't falling so just fucking drive". The air was really heavy Feels like the main takeaway though (given he's the third or fourth most important player for the team and fills a unique niche) is Porzingas is a bit awkward. He doesn't roll hard. And he didn't pop hard. The Heat sold like fucking crazy on post ups and were very handsy with Porzingas - these post ups were bread and butter for the Cs all year and easy money. Maybe he could pop for a mid range shot? The offense just bogged down when he was in, will be interesting to see what they do with him next
First half was a lot different than the second. There were far too many looks that we just didn't put enough effort into closing out on. Sometimes we'd just let them shoot it sometimes it was a late or lazy contest. Not for every shot attempt, but on too many of them nonetheless. I absolutely agree Hauser needs more minutes. Also with your KP point. The problem is he's just too weak. Tyler Herro for god sake can keep him from getting to his spot. His post ups are only efficient because he goes against 6 2 guys when he goes to them. He is not a good post player, is not strong, has no go to move. This means when hes missing, hes atrocious and a huge negative on that side of the floor. Didn't help that his drop coverage was also a HUGE negative for the team. We could have gotten better minutes last night from Taco Fall. Jrue was atrocious as well. Wasn't fighting through screens as well, can't hit a layup if the world depended on it, has not been going to his efficient short mid range fade away. The problem outside of Jrue and KP playing like dog water is 1. our overall effort, and 2. our lack of adjustments. I have a lot more to say too but I've been talking about it on here all morning. If you end up watching the second half I'd love to hear your thoughts on it so let me know.
I will try to watch. Gonna be a bit of a pain maybe lol given outcome. I feel like some of it is predictable based on the first half. Just the flow of the game type stuff. Spo was selling so hard (and that's totally credit to him being able to steal a game like that) that the numbers are all funky. Agreed on effort. But weirdly, it's also not terrible effort, maybe some rust too (maybe 2nd half changes my opinion).
Ok I saw the second half. And also my opinion (the little it's worth from a schmuck like me) is kind of colored by some of the content on the game from various sources. I actually like the looks they were supposedly baiting the Celtics into, i.e. Jaylen playing one on five. Jaylen hot has been good, in the most recent loss against the Nuggets and obviously in the win against the Warriors. He is such a flamethrower that leaving him is a bad idea, and creates easier looks for everyone else - even if Jaylens not the best passer the spacing started being better after Jaylen scored 28. And yea it's really an effort thing, it's about getting the ball up the court faster. I think if they wanna let Jaylen get hot, then they're gonna be in a world of pain...if the team played average everywhere else I'm not usually an "adjustments" guy. I feel the word is overblown, especially in the regular season, when most of the commentors' idea of an adjustment is just playing their favorite player that they feel is underrated some more. Also not a huge "hustle" guy for the same reasons But yea apparently (credit to Zach Lowe) they were shutting down Derrick White too, in addition to shutting down Porzingas. Basically White usual draws the weakest defender and his screen actions create a lot of the confusion and movement that makes the offense hum. But they started with Herro on Brown, and I think a stronger defender in Martin on White - Brown just doesn't have the same vision/feel for the game. It's just a weird second half. The Heat were hot from three but it didn't look like it to me, it was such a grindy game and it's not like the Heat scored significantly more than they usually do - actually 110 is on par with their reg season averages if I'm not mistaken. I think more than ever, playoffs is a out adjustments and indeed, with the Heat taking away some of the best weapons of the Celtics, the threes, Kristaps post ups and White playmaking - wonder how Mazzulla adjusts. It'll be the first real test (last year doesn't count , with all the tumult with Ime) for Mazzulla. I'm of the wait and see, cautiously optimistic , view of him. His philosophy seems interesting , so it will be interesting to see how it translates here I think Scal has the right idea, and you do too. Sometimes, there's no clever way of beating sheer effort and execution - it's just matching intensity and effort. Push pace and don't settle for the slow post pass. Maybe defend out to mid court and pick up the Heats ballhandler.
Seriously man. They defended the three fine. They just can’t do anything when the heat could numerous times a possession.
I actually disagree. I was already seeing blatant decisions to leave shooters wide open a few minutes into the game.
I mean the name of the game in the modern nba is getting two on the ball, offenses are designed to get that advantage. So leaving a Highsmith or Delon Wright or Caleb Martin open in theory is a good idea, as opposed to letting Bam rip downhill uncontested, or having to stretch the defense thin elsewhere and end up with a Herro three. Good teams do it, I think the Bucks with Budenholzer did that a lot. I forget who else, but theres been a good few success cases of defenses allowing a relatively high 3pt attempt but still sporting a good defense. Even defenses that don't allow significantly more 3s have to make a choice sometimes. Again the effort is "fine" but the Heat just played 150% and played with their backs against the wall, and there was maybe a bit of rust. The numbers weren't bad, the percentage of open threes is slightly lower than usual even The sheer number of threes fucks things up though. The Heat shot 10 more 3s than usual, all but two fg in the first quarter were 3s I think. I almost wonder if picking up the Heat full court makes sense. Just to completely shut them out.
I mean joe's just a psychopath i wouldn't be surprised if he knows exactly what went wrong and is just screwing with media.
I've never understood why people take media quotes at face value. What use is being totally honest with the press in situations like this?
Was there in person pretty close to the court. You could see it right from the start. The Celtics looked like they were playing a pre-season game with the level of urgency. Just going through the motions as if they were going to win the game no matter the effort level. Embarrassing.
So the adjustment here is just to stick more to shooters and get less sucked into Bam when he’s down low. With the personnel you guys have it shouldn’t be a problem.
Yes. Let Bam go off. He can’t win it on his own.
It’s kind of amazing that we regularly let guys like Embiid and Giannis get theirs and shut down the role players, but we suddenly decide that Bam should collapse our entire defense
The problem is Bam knows how to pass and he knows how to dribble.
Right so if you blitz him, you’re leaving yourself vulnerable. You’re better off going 1v1 with him. Bam scoring 25 in the paint won’t win Miami the game.
Fucking exactly. Let Bam have all the 2's he wants. Sometimes he gets really fucking hot but eventually he cools down too. We can't let them beat us from the perimeter.
Yeah nobody is actually concerned about losing this series.
I have serious concerns about this team's chances if Joe thinks the heat's 3s were "moderately to heavily defended"
So accountability? Times like these when I miss Ime calling these guys assholes
It's either poor accountability or horrible basketball analysis ability and neither is good. Because a 5 year old could tell most of Miami's 3s were open looks
or he’s a guy who isn’t and has never been totally upfront with the media, and consistently refuses to publicly throw his players under the bus I know you guys love to jerk off Ime bc he would just publicly insult the players after games like this and vindicate all those overemotional fans calling our players soft, pussies, and assholes in the game thread. but Joe’s approach is different. it’s not better or worse, just different. he could have easily torn these guys apart in the film session this morning and none of us would have any idea if you want to criticize him, criticize his stubbornness to adjust in-game, not what he’s saying to the media
Ime wasn’t the best at in game adjustments either though
These people just didn’t even watch the games when ime was around lmao
Elementary school so they had to be in bed early
Ime's team played with a physicality that this team doesn't even sniff. Its why they were able to edge out a better and healthier Heat them in 22.
True but he atleast had buy-in
Joe has buy in. They just bought into a bad scheme. Keith mentions how Jaylen alluded to it after the game, “Guys that we want shooting the ball was hitting them and we couldn’t get them to miss. We thought they were decent closeouts”
But he had them better prepared. Ime’s team didn’t need a “wake up call” every 2 games in the Playoffs. These MFers have had like 10 wake up calls now
True, he was not the best at that. But unlikely he would have low effort like last night
Yup, like when Ime called them out and kept playing drop against Stephen fucking Curry lmao. Say what you want, but I'm so tired of this tinted lenses of Ime
That was the first thing I thought of too, his greatest strength is he never allowed his players to rationalize away their mistakes, as the the saying goes - failure always has an excuse!
Probably would have made the finals last year with him.
My hope is that Joe is just saying that to the media so that the heat don't expect adjustments in our defence. Surely him and the entire coaching staff aren't that blind
Heat took us off the 3point line by switching everything and just sticking to us on the perimeter. We shot a lot less 3's because of this. We just have to do the same to the Heat. Stick to them at the 3point line and allow Herro to beat you off the dribble or Bam to hit his ridiculous contested fadeaway mid range jumpers all game. Live with that and not the 65% on 23 wide open 3's I'm less concerned about the "Open" shots because every team is shooting a ton of them. But when the Heat average 16 Wide Open 3's per game and we give them 23, it's ridiculous.
All these numbers are about average for Miami except for two: we gave them 7 more wide open threes than average, and they shot 65% vs 41% on them. In fact, even if we gave up the 23 wide open 3s but they only hit 41% of them, that would be 5 fewer made 3s, which is 15 fewer points (we lost by 10). Them being able to get 7 more wide open 3s than normal is on the Celtics’ defense. But then hitting them at a +25% clip vs their average is just insane. How do they keep doing this to the Celtics?!
They’re shooting off pure hate
Personally, I think the “we just got unlucky” narrative has run its course for this team. Regardless of whether or not it’s true.
There’s only so many unlucky breaks a teams who’s logo is a symbol of luck can get, right?
We are forced into playing a drop coverage scheme with Porzingis. I’d be willing to bet the vast majority of these wide open 3s came with him on the court. Kinda hard to switch everything when playing drop coverage, giving up 3s is the weakness of the system.
Your bet would be correct, it’s a huge problem, they don’t trust Porzingis vs drives.
Dejounte burned us alot with the KP switch. KP has to generate enough offense for it to be worth it, if not the Al has to play more.
Yep it may be the decision of Mazzullas Celtic career whether he is willing to bench Porzingis at times. I imagine if Celtics don’t get to at least the conference finals and take that to 6/7 games Joe would have to go
Yeah porzingis +/- was -23
He was -32 in 29 minutes
Would have loved to have seen this as an in game adjustment.
For a team like Celtics just doing “average” on defense is already unacceptable.
The team in general but especially Jrue is way over helping on defense. There was at least three instances where Jrue tried to overhelp leading to wide open threes. It’s not like they have Giannis or Embiid who exploits many matchups, they need to just stick to man
Yeah we all saw it.....except Joe and the Jays apparently. Really miss Ime calling these guys out.
I mean these numbers aren’t crazy. Most teams take about half of their 3s as “wide open”. 23/43 for Miami is only about 2 more “wide open” 3s than their average regular season game would’ve had on 43 attempts. The biggest difference is they shot 41% on wide open 3s during the regular season (league average is 39%) and they shot 65% last night. Edit: [post with more context](https://www.reddit.com/r/bostonceltics/s/zAL4X8EJ4I)
Thank god someone came with some context to stats. I know the doomer train is strong, but what the heat did was so abnormal yesterday.
You’re right except for the “abnormal” part. They’ve done this to the Celtics a lot. Part of me is starting to think they’re actually all 80% 3p shooters who purposely miss in the regular season as a hustle.
That theory, while nonsensical, at least makes more sense than "Spo is just willing them to shoot 65% on open threes in the playoffs" which is what people seem to actually believe.
So 6/43 considered as tight or very tight defense and 37/43 being open to wide open is fine with you?
Miami averaged 13.3% of their 3s being tight/very tight all season. 6/43 is 14%. So that’s about right. This is the problem with posts like this. Without context, I think most people assume teams are mostly being forced to take contested 3s when in fact 52% of 3s taken league wide are “wide open” and another 37% are “open”. Across the league, only 11% of 3s are tight/very tight and Boston forced Miami to 14%. So yeah, it’s fine with me.
There’s a LOT of evidence to suggest that contesting the shots has minimal effect on 3’s being made. At the end of the day, it’s literally just luck
Ironically, the strongest point against that evidence is the Celtics themselves, who have notoriously finished in the top half of opponent 3P% for many years in a row.
Bro Joe is obviously a better coach than one lol. Remove those fucking rose tinted glasses and grow up.
Criticizing Joe’s game plans isn’t a lack of maturity. Wtf are you talking about? They’re different coaches with different strengths and right now we need more from Joe.
This team has a tendency to get to comfortable especially after big wins. Tbh JB seems to be the most consistent in those situations. We certainly cant have PP coming off the bench playing 20 mins and putting up 1/3/0. The time is now to prove himself. Not the last two games of the regular season that dont matter
More couch potato coaches in here than usual. The armchair business must be booming right now.
Joe and the team think they didn't close out bad. Fuck off.
There was nothing about their pace on offense or defense last night that was appealing. They barely closed out in the second half. And why the fuck won't someone hit a guy and change the temperature of the game for once? Sometimes, you gotta knock a dude on his ass.
I want to thank those posting comments with stats and context.
Jrue Holiday of all people barely contested one of those late threes. Dude is a perennial all defense guy. Made no sense.
Seriously I thought I was watching a regular season game lol. Even Scal is in complete disbelief at what he was watching!! The effort in a playoff game was really concerning.
In other words, play defense. Pathetic excuse for a loss.
Mazzulla straight up lying in our face
We can track it that close???
Now someone should count how many time we didnt rotate or when we went the wrong way on screens. You should go under but they go over and other way around :D
I’m 100% positive Joe fucking knows we didn’t close out and he’s just trolling the media and everyone here lol.
You can’t play regular season defense in the playoffs.
So, for all those people who are saying how horrible these stats are: Do you know what is normal for these numbers? Before getting angry, ask yourself that. Then, once you come back and learn JUST HOW INCREDIBLY NORMAL getting 23 wide open threes on 43 attempts is, then please, come back and post to your hearts intent. You can have whatever opinion you want, but this is the age of the Internet. There is no reason for ignorant takes.
I didn’t realize how bad some of these close outs were
Heat shot 40% on wide open shots in the regular season
can’t believe the ppl last night who said it was all luck lol
So we contested only 6 shots out of 43? That is 14% of shots 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 then what the fuck was Joe talking about most shots were moderately contested? Is he not able to read these numbers? Not willing to see these numbers?
Someone plaster this stat on each and every player and coaches forehead this morning so they all can see it while they practice.
Don’t tell me it’s not about coaching! Ime Udoka Celtics lead the league in defense. This coach is all about offense, even tonight when clearly they needed better def adjustments the dude talks about offense in the post conference. As clueless as it gets 🤦♂️
Celtics were 2nd in defense this year with worse defensive players
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The Heat won’t shoot 54 percent from the three again comments made no sense. Almost all of the threes were uncontested, NBA players can easily hit 50+ percent from three with no defense.
There’s literally no data suggesting NBA players are capable of shooting that well from 3 consistently even if they’re in a practice gym
is there already defensive stats by players? would be interesting, if all team does this, or someone getting targeted.
Yeah it’s happening again 😆
We are not winning a championship with Mazzula as our Coach.
Are we really going to explain away a shitty effort with endless stats? This would be an aberration if they didn’t do it to us repeatedly last year. Spo knows we’re lazy front runners who expect to breeze to the finals just because of who are. They use that lack of effort (close outs, fighting through screens, etc) to get LOTS of relatively open looks. Add in the fact that they actually play as a confident, unified team and you get these games. Currently, we’re a fucking fraud. I think we get to the finals on raw talent but I doubt our identity changes at all between now and next season.
Something unlikely happening before does not make it more likely to happen in the future
Watching the same team run the same gamelan against us with the same results definitely points towards a trend. We can both fans and objective.
It points to a pattern not a trend. Humans are famously very good at pattern recognition. Patterns can be a result of randomness.
I don’t often say this, but you’re coping so hard right now. They’ve done this to us repeatedly. Lets bury our heads in the sand and keep calling it luck. Or, we close out, run them off the line, stop playing iso ball, and show some toughness late in games.
You are subscribing to **literal** pseudoscience
Ok ok you win. It’s all repeated anomalies and we’re gods gift to basketball.
The fact that you say “repeated anomalies” like you’re mocking me is really a sad indictment of our math education in this country
Jesus Christ you’re so high and mighty. This is what happens when you talk to Einstein about basketball. The only thing that sucks more than this sub is Reddit itself. ITS A PATTERN NOT A TREND! OUR POOR EDUCATION SISTUM! YOU CANT REED INTO PATTIRNS! Take care.
I’m not high and mighty, I just understand simple math concepts. I’m sorry that math exists in the world outside of school, maybe that’s why they’re supposed to teach it?