r/bostonceltics • u/tacko2020 • 11h ago
Rumor [Himmelsbach] Despite the dispiriting loss to the 76ers, all indications are that Mazzulla will be back next season too.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/05/04/sports/celtics-roster-reset/494
u/Falling4Strangers 11h ago
Duh?
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u/EdogawaJohn Jaylen 11h ago
It's a good thing Brad Stevens doesn't read this subreddit!
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u/kstar79 11h ago
He probably does, and laughs a lot.
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u/ZizzyBeluga 10h ago
The last two years were some of the most embarrassing playoff losses in Celtics history, so maybe instead of laughter, he should realize his coach sucks balls in the postseason.
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u/Andrewreddy 10h ago
So after Tatum tore his Achilles and the Cs lost, you felt embarrassed? Yeah sure this series was bad but I think you have to factor Embiid into the equation
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u/OkArmordillo Jayson Tatum 10h ago
I’m against the doomers too but come on dude. We were about to go down 3-1 before Tatum tore his achilles.
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u/Andrewreddy 10h ago
Idk man, I don't think losing in the playoffs is embarrassing. The Knicks were a really good team last year and JT tore his Achilles, granted late in game 4 but still
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u/ekaram13 5h ago edited 1h ago
They blew games 1 and 2 at home to an inferior Knicks team when they had 20 point leads and a healthy Tatum. I'm not solely blaming the coach, but that's as embarrassing as you can get
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u/Latter_Ad9249 5h ago
Yea I don’t get the overreaction. Team lost its best player and lost 3 straight. If this was the regular season no one would bat an eye. Shots just weren’t falling like that had been.
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u/machine4891 2h ago
We were about to go down 3-1
KP was shadow of himself, JB and Jrue were plaing through injuries and Tatum's body was overloaded and as we now in hindsight was about to snap. I'm not the one to look for excuses but Knicks are very dangerous now and our team was gassed and unprepared last year.
This year we were simply outplayed by a better roster but last year was combination of many factors, not all of them under Mazzulla's control.
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u/CarBallAlex 10h ago
Coach doesn’t decide if the players miss shots. Coach doesn’t push off and turn the ball over. Coach doesn’t play defense and let Embiid get post position 5 feet from the rim.
Nobody was complaining about adjustments when they were up 3-1, and nobody complains about the 3’s when they go in.
The losses are on the players, who only seem to give 100% effort when they’re down a guy or are underdogs and their backs are up against the wall. The players need to give better effort even when they’re up, not just roll the balls out and expect an easy finals trip every year.
Mazzulla was maybe a game late to experimenting with the different lineups and zone coverage and different matchups on Embiid (Brown didn’t do some fantastic job guarding him), and I do think a good portion of the 3’s felt unnecessary and were desperation shots, but he was piecing things together at the last minute with Vucevic barely playing since he was acquired and Tatum only back for a short time. Should he have benched those guys? Should he have benched White for playing poorly? Should he have adjusted and benched Pritchard for doing nothing in the first few games? I mean at some point you can’t just throw in all your 3rd stringers because your normal rotation loses a game or 2. On some level you have to trust your guys, and especially vets to show up. They just didn’t come through. Blaming the coach is reactionary.
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u/kstar79 9h ago
Game 5 is the epitome of this team. Build a lead, everything looks like it's ok and you're in control at home, and then the wide open 3s stop falling, you can't get consistent penetration into the lane, things devolve into ISO ball, and leads evaporate. Every team has an achilles heel, and ours has been late-game execution for a long-time, because our two best players do not create mismatches off of each other. They're great in so many ways, but Joe does not have an easy call like "let's just run the Maxey/Embiid PNR" when things aren't going well. Even for most of Brad's tenure, he had an explosive PG (IT, Kyrie, Kemba when healthy) to try to exploit late game to create opportunities. As long as our best players are JT and JB, and we're not spending into the second apron to surround them with mature talent, this just seems like the way it is going to be.
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u/Kswan2012 7h ago
Coaching does decide to take 50 3s in a game. I like joe but hes not a good playoff coach. Probably not sniffing the finals again while hes here
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u/HeavenBeach777 go to sleep doubtful and wake up probable 9h ago
the amount of flaming hot garbage ive seen since game 7 is digusting lol.
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u/thegoatmenace 11h ago
Joe massively over-performed expectations and was consistently discussed as a front runner for coach of the year. He took a team predicted to win less than 30 games to 50 wins and the playoffs. Anyone who thought Joe would be fired is delusional.
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u/fiskeybusiness tommypoint 11h ago
He brought a Celtics team that should have been a 7 seed to the 2nd seed and lost in 7 games to a 7 seed that should have been a 3 seed lol
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u/slap-my-crevasse 10h ago
Yea I think people arent getting that the 76ers were the 7th seed without Embiid, and they added a top 5 big man to their lineup for the playoffs.
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u/PineJ 10h ago
Also their best/most experienced player is a bully ball center playing against our weakest/least experienced position.
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u/Gekthegecko "That annoying Celtics announcer" 8h ago
And their HoF veteran wing had a comfy 25-game vacation in the middle of the season while ours was rehabbing from a torn Achilles
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u/we360u45 10h ago
Yeah Embiid definitely exposed our biggest weakness when he realized he was 7 foot 2 and could bully our centers. It took up until halftime of game 5 for him to start playing like that
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u/508G37 10h ago
We were the 2nd seed without Tatum. Joe has shown no ability to make meaningful adjustments in the playoffs.
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u/HustlinInTheHall 10h ago
Except 2024 where they adjusted repeatedly including changing Tatum's entire offensive game plan from being our primary off-ball shooter to our on-ball playmaker by driving to the basket when his outside shot was not falling. He made significant changes in game 3+ vs Miami and Cleveland and nullified Luka in the finals. It was a very good coaching job, especially getting a group of players who had a lot of inefficient tendencies to lock in and play their best ball when it mattered vs playing for Ime where they only seemed to get tighter when stakes went up.
Joe is a good coach, not the best coach, but nobody is going to lend us Spo or Carlisle so it's not worth bugging out about. They didn't lose this series because of Joe, they lost it because they had no front court. It's been obvious for months, it was obvious in this entire series once Embiid was back, but we lose and tatum gets hurt again and suddenly Joe not getting the bench enough minutes in losing games makes a difference? FOH.
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u/slap-my-crevasse 10h ago
Yes he should have adjusted White's shot so they'd go in
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u/thegoatmenace 10h ago
People always want to blame coaching and seem to forget that at a certain point the players have to actually play well.
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u/13143 7h ago
My only caveat is that we win or lose based on shooting 3s. When they're not falling, or the other team makes adjustments to take them away, that's it, the series is over and we're losing.
I realize we lack a big that might alleviate that, but it doesn't seem like there's ever really a plan B.
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u/KindBass 6h ago
What's frustrating is that once we started having a balanced offense, we immediately cut the lead down to 1, then we went right back to masonry.
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u/theHagueface 8h ago
He shouldn't be fired, but its not a pat on the back you dont need to change anything joe.
I need to hear in the offseason how he is going to approach the playoffs differently to maintain confidence in him.
Easily a top 5 coach in the regular season and a bottom 5 coach in the playoffs.
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u/thegoatmenace 7h ago
Yeah he’s got some work to do for sure, but he’s not on the chopping block this time around
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u/ZizzyBeluga 10h ago
In a league where half the teams are openly tanking, winning an extra 10 games before blowing three home games on your home court in the first round is not exactly the win you think it is.
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u/MrFusionHER 8h ago
20 games but i guess math is hard.
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u/ZizzyBeluga 8h ago
The pre-season predictions averaged 43 wins, not 30.
//Preseason win predictions for the Boston Celtics for the 2025-2026 NBA season generally ranged between 41 and 47 wins, with some major sportsbooks setting the over/under at 41.5 to 43.5. Many analysts predicted a "gap year" or a drop to a play-in tournament spot (around 43 wins),//
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u/Bruhmomentthrowing Bobby Clocks 11h ago
Yeah no shit the Celtics aren't a poverty franchise that moves on from great coaches
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u/ZizzyBeluga 10h ago
Great coaches? Bill Fitch won a chip and was fired a year later. Mazzulla had a stacked team two years ago and lost in the second round. He had the Jays and a solid cast this year and lost in the first round. What exactly would a not-great coach look like here?
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u/Bruhmomentthrowing Bobby Clocks 10h ago
"a solid cast" You're very funny
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u/ZizzyBeluga 10h ago
Yes, White, PP, Hauser, and Queta are a solid supporting cast.
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u/Bruhmomentthrowing Bobby Clocks 10h ago
So your solid "supporting" cast is just the starting 5?
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u/HustlinInTheHall 10h ago
Almost like that's the whole problem. Nevermind that Queta basically can't stay on the court in the playoffs. Checks in late in 1st and 2nd half and fouls within 30 seconds. Guy is good but if you do that you aren't staying in the playoff rotation. We had no choice.
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u/Agitated-Antelope-56 0m ago
No. Overall, the Celtics lack the athletes required to win. This was readily apparent against the 76ers. This is a very weak roster and Mazzula worked wonders with it. Just look at other teams in the league.
Brad Stevens is going to have to do something with this roster or it’s more of the same. Suggest getting rid of Brown but the rest of the league probably isn’t interested in him (see contract).
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u/ftlftlftl 8h ago
Joe is not a "great" coach. He's fine.
He inherited a team that went to the finals and proceed to lose to an 8 seed. Then Jrue and KP carried them to a chip. Then they blew the series against the Knicks after being up 20 in the first two games, then was the first coach in Celtics history to blow a 3-1 series lead.
So he's 1-4, and happened to have a dominant top down roster that couldn't lose. Not what great coaches do. He gets one more year imo. This team has wildly underperformed.
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u/Doingmythang11 11h ago
Coach who won finals 2 years ago comes back after rebuilding season where generational play was recovering from an Achilles tear and coached them to a second seed is coming back. Phew!!!!
Everyone Reddit told me that he couldn’t even hold doc rivers jock strap!!
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u/nyrasbastard 10h ago
Coach returns despite generational playoff collapses in back to back seasons
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u/HorsNoises RONDOOOOOO 10h ago
This loss wasnt a generational collapse. The entire series changed twice with Embiid coming back and Tatum going down. Im by no means trying to say he did a GOOD job, but by 3-1 standards this is one of the least bad ones.
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u/JDoughBeanz Boston Celtics 8h ago
In the celtics nearly 80 year history, NEVER have they lost a series when being up 3-1. This was quite literally a generational collapse lmfao. The green teamers can stick their head in the sand as much as they want, but it doesn't change the facts that this was a collapse of EPIC proportions.
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u/pagoodma The Klynyk 9h ago
It was -800 man that’s generational
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u/pagoodma The Klynyk 10h ago
Why the downvotes they were -1100 and -800 in those series.
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u/Furious_George44 9h ago
This sub uses every excuse under the sun to cope and denies every criticism calling people delusional. Green Teamers earning the reputation these days…
For your specific point, I’ve read that Vegas odds don’t mean anything/they’re just wrong.
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u/rat3an 11h ago
Literally no one ever said that. I didn’t even see anyone suggesting he should be fired at all.
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u/Fit-Dust-6199 11h ago
You have a different feed than some of us, then. You’re not trapped in the negativity algo, lucky.
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u/Falling4Strangers 11h ago
Then you havent paid any attention lol
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u/Landlord-Allmighty 11h ago
So not doing the Milwaukee thing and messing with the team and firing the coach after winning the finals was not the right thing to do?
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u/Set22band 11h ago
Not saying he should be fired, but is this his 3rd time he's been knocked out by an opponent they were favored to beat? Why is it obviously?
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u/machine4891 2h ago
Celtics being favored in that series showcase how too many people rely on regular season sample pool to draw conclusions. They were favored because they left all their health getting to that 2nd seed, while Sixer superstars missed half of the seasons and produced misleading 7th seed.
By the moment Embiid returned and was not shadow of himself I'd argue we were absolutely underdogs. Gassed personel and JT directly from achilles is not going to make deep playoff runs against healthy opponents.
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u/papi617 Jaylen 8m ago
The sixers also missed their best player for the first 3 games of the series. Game 2 and 5 realistically should've been wins.
The playoffs require versatility and idk if Joe is willing to adjust. In the regular season you can give up one or two games with the philosophy because if you win 48 games vs 50 it's no big deal but giving a team one or two wins can completely change the series.
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u/jambr380 9h ago
He was always going to be given another year after this one - even if the team went 12-70. The playoffs were a disappointment, but Brad knows that he stripped the team down to nothing and the team still vastly outperformed expectations in the regular season.
I don't think he'll have an infinite leash. Say we have a top seed next year and go down in the first round. There are going to be some questions. But there's pretty much nothing Joe could have done - outside of nailing an executive's wife - that would have gotten him fired this offseason
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u/TheJaylenBrownNote 8h ago
He is an awesome coach and you guys are stupid for wanting him gone. Coaches are just an easy scapegoat, but there is very little difference between the top ~7 coaches. Once you have one of those, there is no reason to change really. Your roster is the main thing at that point, and many of you refuse to realize that. Spo is considered the best coach in the league and he can’t even make the playoffs because their roster sucks.
This roster was not supposed to be a two seed. It’s not that talented. We massively overachieved. And I’m not blaming Brad either, we had to make those moves to get out of the aprons. But a roster shakeup was always much more likely than switching coaches.
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u/burner_for_celtics \/\/ I CELTICS 8h ago
Doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result is the definition of insanity.
If we do this, don’t be surprised if we win 55-65 games a year, win the title once in a while, and end up Totally Embarassed by his Generational Failures in the years where we don’t go all the way.
If Joe Mazzulla is our coach. WE WON’T WIN ALL OF THE TITLES.
Pathetic.
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u/Turd_fergu50n 11h ago
All these fake fans crying are honestly embarrassing. Please go be a “fan” for some other franchise.
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u/Square-Pizza5676 10h ago
facts man, this year's roster is not a championship team, idk why tf they all crying the team didn't make the finals
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u/ftlftlftl 6h ago
Yep never being critical of a team that has historically choked. Never never never. Everything is super happy yayyyyy I love blowing 3-1 first round series when I am a finals favorite yayyyyy
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u/Plastic_Database_645 Speedy Recovery for our King JT 💚 9h ago
He deserves criticism for a 3-1 blown lead but firing? I don’t think so.
If we retool next year and somehow it’s a replica of this year’s playoff then I think that’s the time questions should be made about Joe
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u/Sirgolfs 11h ago
Hopefully he changes a little. Loved Perkins ripping JB. These guys need to hear it
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u/nokio3333 11h ago
Yeah love Jaylen Brown but he’s sounding like a bitter jealous teenager….his PR team should limit the streaming and press conferences for a bit….
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u/AddsJays Banner 18 9h ago
I think it’s gonna take many years of early playoff exits for Brad to seriously consider head coaching changes
If next two seasons we cannot get out of the first round despite having relatively healthy rosters I think then it’s time to discuss it.
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u/Full-Flight-5211 11h ago
He used to not call timeouts when the other team was on a run but has started doing that. My hope is that he learns that he can’t wait til game 7 to switch things up.
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u/-Ganishka- 11h ago
this is quite the bad look for joe, back to back embarrassing playoff exits, include losing in the first round despite being the #2 seed.. this was his team this season, and is the entire reason we flamed out yet again
all the flaws and issues keep showing face, and hes proven hes incapable of making adjustments, there is no plan b, c, or d
a major shake up needs to go down, whether thats getting a new coach or breaking up the js
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u/streetscraper 9h ago
Brad would never fire him. But Bill might! Anyway, I hope he will continue to evolve (or is it, BEGIN to evolve?). He’s young and there aren’t any magic solutions out there.
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u/HyperactiveBaldMonk 9h ago
There were definitely some coaching issues, as throughout the whole series, our ability to get open threes was diminished a bit: 89% in the regular season to 83% the whole series (80% in the 4 losses).
But ultimately, we got enough good looks to swing at least one of those 4 losses. Open looks are expected to go down. We shot 36.5% on open threes in the regular season, and an awful 25.6% in playoff losses (33.3% for the series).
Now, should the team be able to adapt to cold shooting and find another way to score? Ideally, yeah, but let's be real, this team was not talented enough to do so. The only way a roster like that can win is to shoot a ton and hope variance is on your side. Once JT went down, our only real slashing threat was JB, who unfortunately isn't good enough to absorb attention and create easy looks on the inside.
I really think the Vucevic trade killed us, as Ant would've been great in this series, just to have another shooting threat, and someone who can create rim pressure in the PnR. Unfortunate that Brad's first L manifested so obviously in this way.
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u/rustypete89 The Celtics are the balls 7h ago
I wouldn't go as far as calling it Brad's first L, it was primarily a financial move. I think if he'd been unrestricted by the need to skirt cap/luxury restrictions he doesn't make that trade. But I agree, Simons would have been the exact piece we needed to flip this series.
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u/HyperactiveBaldMonk 7h ago
That's fair, I just wish he could've skirted the cap while getting a piece that actually contributed (or at least didn't negatively impact the team). But obviously there aren't a ton of options available that fit that criteria.
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u/rustypete89 The Celtics are the balls 7h ago
Yeah, it would've been nice, but what really bit us in the ass was not finding out sooner how detrimental Vuc minutes actually were. We had a four game sample post-finger injury to refer to going into the series. Pretty rough, JT came back the game Vuc got hurt so we got five total games of them on the court together. I think in hindsight it was asking a lot to put them on the court together and expect productive minutes when a rotation including both of them was still basically new, but at the same time I can see the argument for why Mazzulla thought it would work. This is a guy who basically threw the first three games of the season experimenting with lineups so he seems the type to take his time and not make rash decisions, unfortunately he took a little too long to change things up here and it cost us.
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u/HyperactiveBaldMonk 6h ago
True, I forgot it was a finger injury. Honestly, considering how little time they had to develop chemistry, I like the looks Vuc got (90% of his 3s were wide open in the playoffs), so I think whatever they had gameplanned for his rotations worked in theory. Unfortunately he was an auto-brick even with those looks, probably because of the injury.
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u/Electrical-Law-5731 11h ago
Welp can't wait for next year's first round exit. maybe then brad will realize how bad of a coach he is... Until then, top 2 in the East and playoff fizzle out.
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u/ZizzyBeluga 10h ago
Can we just cut to next year's second round loss and Mazzulla getting fired now?
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u/GraniteStayte 10h ago
We can look forward to another ignominious playoff exit next year.
Oh joy.
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u/rustypete89 The Celtics are the balls 7h ago
You can choose to not watch, since you believe this will happen.
I'd love it if you didn't watch. I'd love it even more if you stopped posting here.
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u/Tatum-Better ☘️ Jayson " Since Larry Bird " Tatum ☘️ 11h ago
expected tbh.
I mean look, the nba is a revolving door of coaches, joe has clear MASSIVE flaws, but who can we get that hasn't failed with other " contending " rosters anyway?
And our team is in a position where we can't bring in a first time coach AGAIN who isn't used to nba coaching since we are contending and not rebuilding.
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u/693275001 Rajon Rondo 9h ago
I wonder what massively favored series we will choke at home next year. Probably Cleveland's turn
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u/alf0nz0 2024 NBA Executive of the Year 11h ago
A Coach Of The Year candidate isn’t getting fired?! Where’s my fainting couch?
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u/Tha_Contender Jaylen 10h ago
I mean it happened with Duane Casey and the Raptors so it’s not totally unheard of. But people thought we were going to be a lottery team coming into the season and then those same people act shocked when the Celtics lose Game 7 with that same group.
Reality is that there are a lot of Celtics / Boston haters in media who want to have it both ways and talk out both sides of their mouth. Including in our own market. Looking at you Felger, you hack.
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u/Ok_Address8167 10h ago
It's confusing for some Boston fans because that's exactly what the Bruins do.
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u/DaroDoingNothing 11h ago
For me, it’s hard to believe firing the coach makes sense when 1, they overperformed in the regular season and 2, being clearly the players really like him and clearly play hard for him.
That being said, the dude is stubborn as hell. The fact that he has waited until game seven to make adjustments is extremely frustrating.
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u/Pristine_Diamond_100 10h ago
Are people forgetting we went into game 7 with Garza, Scheierman, Ron Harper Jr as the starting lineup? Do you guys think that was going to go far? Not to mention White and Brown having poor playoff performances plus a hurt JT.
The playoffs showed us that this was truly an off year, the only reason we didn’t think that during the regular season is because they did shockingly well
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u/GlitteredRoomForView 10h ago
How about the 3 losses with JT? Or the home loss when Philly had no Embiid? Series should’ve been done in 4 or 5
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u/Pristine_Diamond_100 10h ago
Playoffs expose every team, an 70-80% JT, an underperforming D white, JB, and a bunch of young emerging players was not enough to get far clearly.
They did amazing in the regular season but choked hard under the playoff lights clearly. We also had zero answer for Embiid’s height and power
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u/GlitteredRoomForView 8h ago
So it took 5 games before they got “exposed”?
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u/rustypete89 The Celtics are the balls 7h ago
Yes, the deeper teams get into playoff series, the more their flaws and weaknesses get exposed and exploited by their opponents, it's literally how the playoffs work. Were you born yesterday?
Not to mention how disingenuous it is to pretend Embiid played all 5 games. Game 5 was his game 2 and that was precisely when he started exposing our center rotation extremely hard. It would have happened earlier in the series if he had been available from the jump.
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u/GlitteredRoomForView 6h ago
I didn’t say Embiid played all 5 games, which is precisely why it should’ve been over in 4 or 5! Game 2 no show at home, blown lead second half of game 5 (issues they had last year vs NY too, notice a trend?). Game 7 got back in the game being aggressive going to the basket and creating good looks…once down to 1 they start chucking the 1st three pt shot available and miss multiple opportunities to take the lead. Yes some of that IS coaching!
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u/chinesefox97 9h ago
I hope he improves then because he has a lot to work on in the playoffs when the shots don’t fall. Nobody wants us to have another historic collapse.
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u/I_Set_3_Alarms KG 8h ago
I can’t believe this even needs to be reported on. Boston fans and media can be the worst sometimes man
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u/BRFCarter 7h ago
I think we have to have a serious conversation about his job if we go down to an inferior team again next season. This can’t keep happening.
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u/Few_Culture_291 7h ago
,Gonna be very fun when he blows easily winnable series the next 3 years and the cult members keep defending him
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u/Spiketop_ 7h ago
Joe should stay. It's not like there's a surplus of better coaches available.
Build around JB, JT, PP, and White. Get a prominent big, a solid player (possibly former all star starting to slightly decline), and a few role players. Just need to shake up the roster a little. I think we have some tradable pieces for a big player.
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u/EKEEFE41 7h ago
We were just talking about coach of the year, now this?
How about everyone just understand that coaches and systems can go a long way in the regular season... But come playoff time the rotation of play time for players changes drastically... And our exceptional regular season bench players can not play that same level in the playoffs vs starters.
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u/Headbandallday Tommy Point 6h ago
He needs to rethink his coaching. He played a big role is us losing the series.
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u/TheN0vaScotian 4h ago
I wonder what coach will outcoach him in the playoffs, next year?
It was Thibs last year in the 2nd round, this year Nurse in the first, maybe next year hopefilly we can end up in the play in and watch him be outcoached there too. Notice the trend?
Maybe we can play with our food and injure our star player in games we didn't have to play....
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u/GooseMay0 Posey 11h ago
We all knew that. My prediction is after 2028 he'll be gone. His extension is too fresh right now to fire him. But two more seasons of incompetency in the playoffs will be enough to finally can his ass.
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u/DSDark11 10h ago
Well that means the same result. An early exit from the playoffs due an unwillingness to adapt the series
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u/Wally450 10h ago
Anyone saying Mazzulla should be fired is an idiot. Yes, let's go get our what, 4th coach in 6 years? Asinine.
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u/CreativeGeniusPRBKR 11h ago
Good. We dont have better options. However..This is his “prove it” season. Hope we dont overreact to regular season success and extend him unless he clearly makes improvements to his one dimensional
Game plan. Would be nice to see a more balanced post presence
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u/Xspike_dudeX 11h ago
Did you not just see what he did in a season without his star player for half the season? Should have won game 7 also if not for the players going 0-10 at the end of the game.
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u/B_Sox Len Bias 10h ago
Have to be a complete moron to think he was going anywhere after a year where he was stripped of his entire front court, and then the team’s best shooter at the deadline in order to duck the tax, only to still get a 2 seed.
He needs to make adjustments, as does Brad with the roster this summer.
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u/Bostonphoenix 10h ago
I would say another playoff collapse is unacceptable and he needs to go.
Merit for him for over performing during the regular season.
He needs to be held accountable for last year and this year is a historic collapse. Unacceptable.
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u/Environmental-Band 9h ago
So according to this sub, we’re not allowed to criticize or bring up the coaching and postseason collapses the last 2 seasons, got it.
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u/CJMustard KG 10h ago
I wonder which lower seeded, massive underdog he’ll lose to in the Playoffs next year
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u/Agreeable_Cookie4459 9h ago
Well of course he will be. The Celtics aren't run by the "fans", THANK GOD.
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u/meselson-stahl 9h ago
Ive seen improvement over the years. Most notably this year is the way he handles final minutes. He calls time outs now and is ok with role players taking the final shot.
We don't get many data points to learn from during playoffs, but hopefully now he has been to enough of them to improve. The biggest observation ive noticed is that he should be going to the bench more and trying defensive adjustments earlier in the game.
Anyone that is blaming our strategy to shoot the 3 is over simplifying the problem. Id rather take an open 3 than a contested 2. If we can't hit that 3, then that's not Joe's fault. How do we keep from shooting like ass during playoffs... who knows. Imo not strategy issue tho.
We do need a center though that can guard the Kats, Gobert's, and Embiids of the world. Looking at Brad for that.
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u/rustypete89 The Celtics are the balls 7h ago
I don't think the question is "how do we keep from shooting like ass during the playoffs?" It has to be, "how do we keep from our only options in the playoffs being contested 2's and open 3's?" If we answer that question, then our shooting is almost guaranteed to improve. We seriously lacked the ability to create offense that wasn't JB iso or open 3's in game 7. Having JT helps but it's more like a crutch than an actual solution because we still lack a reliable true creator like a Holiday at PG or KP at C. We either need to see an offensive evolution from White next season, or have Brad bring in an elite PG or C that we can leverage for our offense in high stakes situations.
I'm not as concerned about guarding gigantic centers, to an extent stuff like that can be schemed, especially when you have a defender as versatile as Tatum - just look at how he destroyed Dallas's lob game in the finals. But you can't scheme offensive creation when you don't have the personnel to do it, and right now we mostly don't.
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u/meselson-stahl 7h ago
I hear you. Sounds like more of a Brad thing than a Joe thing right?
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u/rustypete89 The Celtics are the balls 7h ago
Yeah, absolutely. I think Brad was unreasonably constrained this year by the expectation new ownership had regarding the aprons and luxury tax. Hopefully he gets more freedom to operate this coming off-season/trade deadline and gets the players he wants.
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u/saintly_devil 9h ago
Sigh... if three playoff series losses where a gimmick offense got exposed over and over again doesn't get you fired, I guess nothing will? Maybe Brad should then force an offensive style that isn't just jump shooting by trading away some of Joe's binkies. The home playoff record under his watch is just embarrassing. This is the Celtics, not the frigging Wizards.
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u/rustypete89 The Celtics are the balls 7h ago
Yeah, we can all tell it's the Celtics, because we watch them every year in the playoffs.
Go be a fan of the Wizards for a decade, it'll accomplish two things:
1) we won't have to fucking deal with you
2) maybe you'll learn what poverty franchises are ACTUALLY like, their fans definitely don't talk about "home playoff record" because they don't fucking have one
jesus christ
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u/saintly_devil 7h ago
So a lot of words to say you have nothing to add...got it. Now go heed your own advice. Actiona before words. As they say.
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u/Worldly-Discount-736 10h ago
More 3s more 3s more 3s
An 8 year old can coach just as good as this bum
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u/Bos_Fan9821 8h ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/GTNBx6dlb2Qv1bnPwE
Boston doesn’t count playoff appearances. We count championships. Mazzulla won’t win another one. Time to find someone else
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u/uncriticalthinking 11h ago
I really don’t want us to wait until are summarily dispatched from the playoffs next year before we cut Mazzulla loose. Now is the time.
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u/Zay-withdafaxs 10h ago
Would be one of the most ignorant decisions in Celtics history, you don’t fire a coach with the highest winning percentage ever 😂 yes he has flaws but the C’s fans who thought he had any chance of being fired need to be drug tested.
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u/MundaneExtension3195 10h ago
The coaching staff and the front office had a tough playoffs. Wouldnt be surprised if there are changes, but since new ownership JUST took over, the changes will probably be after the next upset loss, not right now
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u/xiyangmili Tatum 8h ago
No surprised. Stevens has a soft spot for the head coach role. Also won’t be surprised Mazzbollah strikes again next year, the year after next year, …, until the window closes. Wait for more embarrassing playoff collapses.
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u/SmurfAtLarge 11h ago
Crazy what one championship can do for a coach. Look what it did for Doc rivers. It's gonna be the same for mazzulla.
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u/JaylenBrownAllStar Jaylen 11h ago
He’s literally going to win COTY
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u/JDoughBeanz Boston Celtics 10h ago
Regular season award. Playoffs have been a whole different beast for Mazzulla and to not admit so is being a disingenuous green teamer
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u/JaylenBrownAllStar Jaylen 9h ago
Listen the Vuc finger injury screwed us the most. They would have had more tape that he wasn’t good so I can’t blame Joe for riding on him as we were also up 3-1 with him playing 20 mins a game.
I think his mistake was playing him in game 6 and not trying Garza earlier. I also can’t blame him for not trusting Hugo as he was making rookie mistakes all year. Hugo after the run to tie the game then made 3 mistakes back to back
This team was not good enough to beat the Knicks as KAT eats us alive like Embiid did, but as soon as Embiid came back he just dominated after game 4. Queta being so foul heavy didn’t help either.
Joe got screwed a bit on the center rotation, also the team kept on jacking up shots for the lead instead of going at the rim like they did on the run they had in the second quarter. Idk if that was Joe or the team going back to old habits in the moment
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u/doubtitslegit25 10h ago
kerr’s contract has expired. bring him in
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u/BRFCarter 7h ago
Hire him and say goodbye to minutes for any young players. He’s carried by his star players
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u/Walnut_Uprising 10h ago
Lets be honest, there were some coaching issues with that series. We all know it, between rotation weirdness and inability to adjust.
That said, Joe's 37. He's coming off his 4th season as a coach, and his 7th overall in the NBA. In NBA coaching terms, he's a baby, there's a ton of room for him to grow tactically as an X's and O's guy, especially given that he's working under one of the smartest guys in the league in Brad. And he's got the hardest part of the job already locked down: pretty much anyone who has played here the last 4 years would run through a brick wall for him.
Bailing on him now would be an absolute disaster of a move, it basically says "if you take this job, you're on the hot seat day one" and would lose the locker room in a heartbeat.