Hopefully Huerter doesn't shrink again in the playoffs next year
I like the KCP/Brown acquisitions for the Nuggets better
Random NBA Observations 2022 - 2023
- Thread starter Big Jo
- Start date
Hopefully Huerter doesn't shrink again in the playoffs next year
I like the KCP/Brown acquisitions for the Nuggets better
VegetasHairline
Veteran
Signed Malik Monk, drafted Keegan Murray, and hired Mike Brown as well. Wasn't just trading for Kevin Huerter.
I'd give it to Pelinka. fukk it. Traded Westbrook trash for decent pieces that helped the Lakers more than Westbrook could ever.
They got Hachimura nearly for free.
I think the GM work that goes down in the middle of a season is underrated. To be able to come up with a roster solution quickly, and turn disaster into successful season, is not something that happens often.
VegetasHairline
Veteran
It's Executive of the Year, not Executive of the Trade Deadline. Pelinka came into the season with a bad roster. That matters as well. Plus the history of ineptitude and the playoff drought likely played a factor as well. I'm obviously biased too.
Ja Morant nonsense was already too much for them. He only made their season worse by adding extra motivation for the Lakers.
Some team will sign him. For cheaper than he could've got.
levitate
I love you, you know.
Big ass gap between games 2 and 3 in this PHX series…
staticshock
Veteran
Them white dudes on RealGM are PISSED Jokic didn’t win MVP 
I would love to join in this but I need Bill Simmons to be right on this one. St. John’s headed back to the final four
Be careful out here Julius. Kendra is the type to take the kids and the dogs to
Tell 'em to teach Jokic how to get so defensiveThem white dudes on RealGM are PISSED Jokic didn’t win MVP
With the fate of the Boston Celtics’season beginning to teeter, Jayson Tatumcalmly caught the ball and scanned the court. He might have called his own number years ago, but experience has taught him to hunt for the right opportunity instead.
Tatum dribbled off a Marcus Smart screen and invited a double team. With the Celtics tied late in Game 6, the final five minutes of the fourth quarter would decide whether they closed out the Atlanta Hawks or proceeded to a Game 7. Not long ago, bad decisions regularly took over the Boston offense during moments like this. Throughout the first half of last season, when questions about Tatum’s fit next to Jaylen Brown sizzled, stagnation and isolation ruled the Celtics’ late-game attack. The team’s complete transformation from that time charged a run to last season’s NBA Finals. It helped leave Boston as the favorite to win the championship this season. It produced the NBA’s second-ranked offense, which relied on smarts and cohesion as much as the brute force of talent.
Tatum threaded a bounce pass to Smart, who pivoted to find Grant Williams all alone in the left corner. Though Williams’ shot crashed off the rim, the process behind it suggested the Celtics were ready to think their way into the second round. The rest of the fourth quarter involved similar precision. As Smart would say later, everything started with Tatum and Brown. On possession after possession, they leveraged their considerable gifts not to free themselves but rather to guide their team into advantages. The Celtics were more experienced and talented than Atlanta, but owned the final five minutes thanks to their brains.
They weren’t always able to succeed in that fashion. If Boston does win the franchise’s first ring since 2008, it will be due in large part to the team’s offensive evolution, which seemed to happen overnight but required years of development and hard lessons. Major acquisitions, including Derrick White and Malcolm Brogdon, helped spur the changes but the shift started at the top of the roster with Tatum and Brown yearning to become more well-rounded. Their biggest skeptics wondered if the Celtics should break up the young duo but missed out on the most important factor. They always wanted to lift up their teammates. Brown and Tatum just needed to learn how.
In the depths of last season’s struggles, when the criticism surrounding Brown and Tatum peaked, they adopted the unusual habit of watching film together. In the NBA, players normally watch game video either individually or as a full team. Tatum and Brown started to see the game differently. They started to see it as one — both on the same page and noticing the same things. Before a practice during last season’s Finals, Tatum revealed to The Athletic that he considered the practice one of the most significant factors in the team’s stunning turnaround.
I think that’s what really helped,” Tatum said. “Just watching film together and talking things out.”
The Celtics could have splintered at the time. Instead, with Joe Mazzulla as a leading voice and still an assistant coach during the film sessions, they started finding the answers that carried them out of a long rut. Mazzulla believes Tatum’s and Brown’s willingness to study the game set the stage for the team’s new offensive style this season, where, Mazzulla says, “it’s more reads, it’s more ownership, it’s more empowerment, it’s more freedom to make decisions because of their growth as players.” The deep conversations about the game established a layer of trust between Mazzulla and Boston’s two All-Stars, which helped Mazzulla connect with the locker room upon taking over as head coach from Ime Udoka days before training camp this season.
Tatum and Brown look back on those days as a pivotal time for their growth. In one of the most trying times they experienced as teammates, they refused to let anything split them apart.
“I felt like it was a breaking point,” said Tatum. “It was either going to make or break the season. And we got closer instead of separating.”
Tatum dribbled off a Marcus Smart screen and invited a double team. With the Celtics tied late in Game 6, the final five minutes of the fourth quarter would decide whether they closed out the Atlanta Hawks or proceeded to a Game 7. Not long ago, bad decisions regularly took over the Boston offense during moments like this. Throughout the first half of last season, when questions about Tatum’s fit next to Jaylen Brown sizzled, stagnation and isolation ruled the Celtics’ late-game attack. The team’s complete transformation from that time charged a run to last season’s NBA Finals. It helped leave Boston as the favorite to win the championship this season. It produced the NBA’s second-ranked offense, which relied on smarts and cohesion as much as the brute force of talent.
Tatum threaded a bounce pass to Smart, who pivoted to find Grant Williams all alone in the left corner. Though Williams’ shot crashed off the rim, the process behind it suggested the Celtics were ready to think their way into the second round. The rest of the fourth quarter involved similar precision. As Smart would say later, everything started with Tatum and Brown. On possession after possession, they leveraged their considerable gifts not to free themselves but rather to guide their team into advantages. The Celtics were more experienced and talented than Atlanta, but owned the final five minutes thanks to their brains.
They weren’t always able to succeed in that fashion. If Boston does win the franchise’s first ring since 2008, it will be due in large part to the team’s offensive evolution, which seemed to happen overnight but required years of development and hard lessons. Major acquisitions, including Derrick White and Malcolm Brogdon, helped spur the changes but the shift started at the top of the roster with Tatum and Brown yearning to become more well-rounded. Their biggest skeptics wondered if the Celtics should break up the young duo but missed out on the most important factor. They always wanted to lift up their teammates. Brown and Tatum just needed to learn how.
In the depths of last season’s struggles, when the criticism surrounding Brown and Tatum peaked, they adopted the unusual habit of watching film together. In the NBA, players normally watch game video either individually or as a full team. Tatum and Brown started to see the game differently. They started to see it as one — both on the same page and noticing the same things. Before a practice during last season’s Finals, Tatum revealed to The Athletic that he considered the practice one of the most significant factors in the team’s stunning turnaround.
I think that’s what really helped,” Tatum said. “Just watching film together and talking things out.”
The Celtics could have splintered at the time. Instead, with Joe Mazzulla as a leading voice and still an assistant coach during the film sessions, they started finding the answers that carried them out of a long rut. Mazzulla believes Tatum’s and Brown’s willingness to study the game set the stage for the team’s new offensive style this season, where, Mazzulla says, “it’s more reads, it’s more ownership, it’s more empowerment, it’s more freedom to make decisions because of their growth as players.” The deep conversations about the game established a layer of trust between Mazzulla and Boston’s two All-Stars, which helped Mazzulla connect with the locker room upon taking over as head coach from Ime Udoka days before training camp this season.
Tatum and Brown look back on those days as a pivotal time for their growth. In one of the most trying times they experienced as teammates, they refused to let anything split them apart.
“I felt like it was a breaking point,” said Tatum. “It was either going to make or break the season. And we got closer instead of separating.”
The Celtics’ offense now relies heavily on what Mazzulla calls “randomness.” As Smart described the system, the team has “a couple plays” with all sorts of reads off those actions. Everything only works if the players operate on the same page.
“Literally,” Smart said, “the majority of the offense is random.”
The foundation began to take place last season. From the start of Udoka’s tenure, he preached the need for Tatum and Brown to improve as playmakers. They had experienced substantial success in the NBA, with multiple trips to the conference finals before Udoka took over, but the burden on them grew as their responsibilities did the same. As Brown pointed out, individual expansion only contributed so much to Boston’s eventual turnaround. He missed 14 games before the middle of December. The Celtics needed to figure out how to maximize their rotation. The addition of White at the trade deadline upgraded Udoka’s lineup options. During Udoka’s first year as a head coach, the players also needed to adjust to his principles.
It all took time. The Celtics almost ran out of it. At the turn of the new year last season, the Celtics were just 17-19 with the NBA’s 20th-ranked offense. Nearly midway through the campaign, they were in danger of missing the playoffs entirely. Something needed to change. Out of desperation, some of the assistant coaches brainstormed what they could do to accelerate the learning curve.
“At the time, JT’s individual coach (Aaron Miles) and Jaylen’s individual coach (Tony Dobbins), we all worked together, we were all assistants,” said Mazzulla. “And we were just sitting there and saying, ‘What’s the next step for these guys? What’s the next step for the team?’”
The Celtics settled on dual film sessions to help Tatum and Brown see how they could simplify the game for themselves and others. Miles said fellow assistant Matt Reynolds put together clips for the group to evaluate. During the breakdowns, Brown said he and Tatum recognized how much more they could do.
“A lot of the time Joe was in those film sessions,” said Brown. “And he was leading them even when he wasn’t the head coach. I always liked how Joe broke down the game and broke down film. And Joe would be pointing things out that we might not have been seeing. And that helped us gain further understanding about the game of basketball.”
The group went over reads. There was a focus on detail after detail. The group highlighted all of the factors Tatum and Brown needed to consider on each possession: Who was guarding each of them? How were they being defended? Who else was on the court with them? By working in unison, how could they take advantage of their opponent’s strategy and their own personnel?
“We still had a lot to learn and grow in the game,” said Brown. “And we definitely started to see it. It slowed down in the film sessions and those details, you could see where your growth needed to take place.
Around that time, doubts formed outside of the Celtics organization about whether Tatum and Brown could lead a team together. They heard they were too selfish. They heard they couldn’t coexist. Inside the building, coaches held a different belief.
“There was always a narrative out there about whether or not they can play together,” said Miles. “And I thought when I was sitting in there observing the film session, I was like, OK, these dudes are attentive, they’re talking, they point out different things.”
“Those two guys have always been eager to learn and to grow,” echoed Mazzulla. “And I think it was just more of them (wanting) to get into a room and say, ‘OK, you have to get to the truth.’ And the truth is they wanted to win, they wanted to play together, they’re really good players and they care about each other. That was all the true stuff.
“So once you’re able to get to that, it’s like, ‘Here’s what’s really going on.’ It’s not that you’re not passing or you’re being selfish. It’s not any of those. It’s we don’t necessarily have the system set up to where we’re able to take advantage of defenses together. And when you have really talented people working together, yeah it’s going to be difficult and yeah you’re going to have to figure that part out. So they were able to get to the truth and then they were able to work through it on film. And it took off from there on those two guys.”
The frustration with Tatum’s and Brown’s playing style didn’t just come from external sources. In November 2021, Smart lashed out at his teammates during a press conference, saying that every team’s scouting report said to make Tatum and Brown passers, but “they don’t want to pass the ball.”
A long list of people close to the two young wings reached out to tell them they needed to rescue the Celtics’ season.
“Literally,” Smart said, “the majority of the offense is random.”
The foundation began to take place last season. From the start of Udoka’s tenure, he preached the need for Tatum and Brown to improve as playmakers. They had experienced substantial success in the NBA, with multiple trips to the conference finals before Udoka took over, but the burden on them grew as their responsibilities did the same. As Brown pointed out, individual expansion only contributed so much to Boston’s eventual turnaround. He missed 14 games before the middle of December. The Celtics needed to figure out how to maximize their rotation. The addition of White at the trade deadline upgraded Udoka’s lineup options. During Udoka’s first year as a head coach, the players also needed to adjust to his principles.
It all took time. The Celtics almost ran out of it. At the turn of the new year last season, the Celtics were just 17-19 with the NBA’s 20th-ranked offense. Nearly midway through the campaign, they were in danger of missing the playoffs entirely. Something needed to change. Out of desperation, some of the assistant coaches brainstormed what they could do to accelerate the learning curve.
“At the time, JT’s individual coach (Aaron Miles) and Jaylen’s individual coach (Tony Dobbins), we all worked together, we were all assistants,” said Mazzulla. “And we were just sitting there and saying, ‘What’s the next step for these guys? What’s the next step for the team?’”
The Celtics settled on dual film sessions to help Tatum and Brown see how they could simplify the game for themselves and others. Miles said fellow assistant Matt Reynolds put together clips for the group to evaluate. During the breakdowns, Brown said he and Tatum recognized how much more they could do.
“A lot of the time Joe was in those film sessions,” said Brown. “And he was leading them even when he wasn’t the head coach. I always liked how Joe broke down the game and broke down film. And Joe would be pointing things out that we might not have been seeing. And that helped us gain further understanding about the game of basketball.”
The group went over reads. There was a focus on detail after detail. The group highlighted all of the factors Tatum and Brown needed to consider on each possession: Who was guarding each of them? How were they being defended? Who else was on the court with them? By working in unison, how could they take advantage of their opponent’s strategy and their own personnel?
“We still had a lot to learn and grow in the game,” said Brown. “And we definitely started to see it. It slowed down in the film sessions and those details, you could see where your growth needed to take place.
Around that time, doubts formed outside of the Celtics organization about whether Tatum and Brown could lead a team together. They heard they were too selfish. They heard they couldn’t coexist. Inside the building, coaches held a different belief.
“There was always a narrative out there about whether or not they can play together,” said Miles. “And I thought when I was sitting in there observing the film session, I was like, OK, these dudes are attentive, they’re talking, they point out different things.”
“Those two guys have always been eager to learn and to grow,” echoed Mazzulla. “And I think it was just more of them (wanting) to get into a room and say, ‘OK, you have to get to the truth.’ And the truth is they wanted to win, they wanted to play together, they’re really good players and they care about each other. That was all the true stuff.
“So once you’re able to get to that, it’s like, ‘Here’s what’s really going on.’ It’s not that you’re not passing or you’re being selfish. It’s not any of those. It’s we don’t necessarily have the system set up to where we’re able to take advantage of defenses together. And when you have really talented people working together, yeah it’s going to be difficult and yeah you’re going to have to figure that part out. So they were able to get to the truth and then they were able to work through it on film. And it took off from there on those two guys.”
The frustration with Tatum’s and Brown’s playing style didn’t just come from external sources. In November 2021, Smart lashed out at his teammates during a press conference, saying that every team’s scouting report said to make Tatum and Brown passers, but “they don’t want to pass the ball.”
A long list of people close to the two young wings reached out to tell them they needed to rescue the Celtics’ season.
Part 3
I’m on the phone with Jayson and Jaylen,” said former Celtics assistant Jerome Allen. “I’m saying, ‘Come on, man. Y’all got to figure this out.’”
Allen wasn’t nearly alone.
“Everybody was saying the same thing: We’ve gotta figure it out,” said Brown. “But nobody was trying to help us figure it out. And that’s how Joe was different. He showed us how. He helped break down the game and see where you could be better, see where you could make the game simpler and easier. He really laid it out for us in some of those film sessions. And that’s what the difference was.”
One difference now? The Celtics have turned the lessons of last season into an even more fluid offensive system.
“We’ve been playing freely,” Smart said late in the regular season. “We don’t have any chains on. That’s not saying that last year we did, it’s just even more evident this year to let us just play. And that’s the thing that Joe has been preaching. He wants us to play. He just wants to be here when we need him. And we love Joe for that.”
The Celtics roster has undergone significant changes since the beginning of last season. From top to bottom, Brad Stevens filled the supporting cast with high-IQ players. White and Brogdon gave the team more maturity and playmaking. Mazzulla asked Smart to organize himself and his teammates into the right places at the right times.
The Celtics still needed Tatum and Brown to progress in understanding the game. Near the beginning of the season, Mazzulla posed a simple question to them: What would an opponent walk through at shootaround on the day of a game against the Celtics?
“And they didn’t have an answer,” Mazzulla said.
From there, the Celtics continued enhancing their awareness of what teams would want to take away from them. Once they understood what teams would prepare to stop against them, they needed to figure out their own counters to the strategies. Mazzulla wanted his players to see the game through the lens of “if-then” scenarios. If an opponent used one coverage, then the Celtics would handle it a certain way. If an opponent pivoted to a different plan, then the Celtics would adjust themselves. Mazzulla said he sees the game as a string of problems on both ends of the court.
“And you have to be ready to just solve problems,” said Mazzulla. “And those two guys are very open-minded to problem-solving. Once the game became if-then — if this, then that — I think that’s where they really grew.”
Mazzulla said he sometimes installed actions the day before a game. When he did, he said Tatum and Brown “executed the reads the next day in the game to a T.”
“(The offense) changed because now we’re able to open it up to where we have plays, we have specifics, but it’s those guys really,” said Mazzulla. “It’s more about, like, OK, here’s the concept. How can you two use your talent, your skill and your mind to get to what we want to get to? From then until now, it’s been really the genesis of our offense because of those two guys’ buy-in and their time spent doing that.”
Smart believes the Celtics were headed toward this style this season, with or without Udoka, who was suspended days before training camp and eventually replaced on a permanent basis by Mazzulla. Indeed, both Udoka and Stevens preached the importance of additional player movement after the team’s Finals loss to the Golden State Warriors. During that series, Smart said the Celtics players noticed the difficulty of guarding an offense built on motion and flow rather than sets.
“It was tough to guard,” said Smart. “We know we had just as much talent as those guys if not even more.”
Maybe so, but Boston’s offense stalled out in key moments throughout that series. The Celtics led by five points with 7:32 remaining in a Game 4 loss but scored just six points the rest of the way. Afterward, Tatum blamed the drought on stagnation. His recognition of the problem failed to stop it later in the series. Boston trailed by just one point entering the fourth quarter of Game 5 before scoring just five points over the first eight minutes of the period.
“A lot of times when we played against teams, they knew what we were running and they knew what we were doing,” said Brown. “And we would still be able to be effective, but our offense wasn’t as good as it should have been throughout the playoffs. Our defense was fantastic but our offense wasn’t as good as it should have been.”
At the end of the six-game Finals loss, Udoka said the Celtics needed to improve their collective team IQ. They eventually did so within an offensive system designed to let the players think their way out of issues.
“For us it was just, it’s tough to guard all five of us,” said Smart. “If you’re moving around and you just create randomness, that’s kind of tough because now they don’t know what’s going on. Because they’re (thinking), ‘(The Celtics players) don’t even know what’s going on. They’re just running stuff.’ It’s like, ‘How can we guard that? They don’t even know what they’re running so how do we know?’ And it just makes it a little harder to scout when you can just go out there and say we’re just going to pass the ball, screen and cut and not run any plays.”
Opponents adjusted. Midway through the season, Brown said he could sense teams had scouted some of the Celtics’ randomness. They knew what Boston’s reads would be. He noticed defenders starting to top lock the Celtics’ wings — covering them on the opposite side of the basket to take away a path to the perimeter. That forced Boston to come up with new answers.
For Brown and Tatum, that has become a constant quest. Smart believes their mindset has shifted with experience.
“Just the way that they’re able to adapt to the game,” Smart said. “It’s tough when you’ve got a specific agenda that you’re supposed to do. If you’re a scorer, you’re supposed to score the ball. But what happens when every other team knows you’re trying to score the ball? Can you adapt? Can you still do things to win the game even if you’re not scoring? And that has shown.”
Mazzulla said Brown and Tatum used to know exactly where their shots would come from and how they would produce those looks.
“But I think a part of the development of really good players is that defenses are gonna take all of that away,” said Mazzulla. “That’s actually a compliment. That’s how good you’ve gotten is they’re going to take that away. Now what? So you have to be able to manipulate the environment, you have to be able to then create one on your own.”
That reality led to the latest step in Boston’s evolution.
“Now, if you don’t have a play,” said Mazzulla, “how are they going to guard you?”
Allen wasn’t nearly alone.
“Everybody was saying the same thing: We’ve gotta figure it out,” said Brown. “But nobody was trying to help us figure it out. And that’s how Joe was different. He showed us how. He helped break down the game and see where you could be better, see where you could make the game simpler and easier. He really laid it out for us in some of those film sessions. And that’s what the difference was.”
One difference now? The Celtics have turned the lessons of last season into an even more fluid offensive system.
“We’ve been playing freely,” Smart said late in the regular season. “We don’t have any chains on. That’s not saying that last year we did, it’s just even more evident this year to let us just play. And that’s the thing that Joe has been preaching. He wants us to play. He just wants to be here when we need him. And we love Joe for that.”
The Celtics roster has undergone significant changes since the beginning of last season. From top to bottom, Brad Stevens filled the supporting cast with high-IQ players. White and Brogdon gave the team more maturity and playmaking. Mazzulla asked Smart to organize himself and his teammates into the right places at the right times.
The Celtics still needed Tatum and Brown to progress in understanding the game. Near the beginning of the season, Mazzulla posed a simple question to them: What would an opponent walk through at shootaround on the day of a game against the Celtics?
“And they didn’t have an answer,” Mazzulla said.
From there, the Celtics continued enhancing their awareness of what teams would want to take away from them. Once they understood what teams would prepare to stop against them, they needed to figure out their own counters to the strategies. Mazzulla wanted his players to see the game through the lens of “if-then” scenarios. If an opponent used one coverage, then the Celtics would handle it a certain way. If an opponent pivoted to a different plan, then the Celtics would adjust themselves. Mazzulla said he sees the game as a string of problems on both ends of the court.
“And you have to be ready to just solve problems,” said Mazzulla. “And those two guys are very open-minded to problem-solving. Once the game became if-then — if this, then that — I think that’s where they really grew.”
Mazzulla said he sometimes installed actions the day before a game. When he did, he said Tatum and Brown “executed the reads the next day in the game to a T.”
“(The offense) changed because now we’re able to open it up to where we have plays, we have specifics, but it’s those guys really,” said Mazzulla. “It’s more about, like, OK, here’s the concept. How can you two use your talent, your skill and your mind to get to what we want to get to? From then until now, it’s been really the genesis of our offense because of those two guys’ buy-in and their time spent doing that.”
Smart believes the Celtics were headed toward this style this season, with or without Udoka, who was suspended days before training camp and eventually replaced on a permanent basis by Mazzulla. Indeed, both Udoka and Stevens preached the importance of additional player movement after the team’s Finals loss to the Golden State Warriors. During that series, Smart said the Celtics players noticed the difficulty of guarding an offense built on motion and flow rather than sets.
“It was tough to guard,” said Smart. “We know we had just as much talent as those guys if not even more.”
Maybe so, but Boston’s offense stalled out in key moments throughout that series. The Celtics led by five points with 7:32 remaining in a Game 4 loss but scored just six points the rest of the way. Afterward, Tatum blamed the drought on stagnation. His recognition of the problem failed to stop it later in the series. Boston trailed by just one point entering the fourth quarter of Game 5 before scoring just five points over the first eight minutes of the period.
“A lot of times when we played against teams, they knew what we were running and they knew what we were doing,” said Brown. “And we would still be able to be effective, but our offense wasn’t as good as it should have been throughout the playoffs. Our defense was fantastic but our offense wasn’t as good as it should have been.”
At the end of the six-game Finals loss, Udoka said the Celtics needed to improve their collective team IQ. They eventually did so within an offensive system designed to let the players think their way out of issues.
“For us it was just, it’s tough to guard all five of us,” said Smart. “If you’re moving around and you just create randomness, that’s kind of tough because now they don’t know what’s going on. Because they’re (thinking), ‘(The Celtics players) don’t even know what’s going on. They’re just running stuff.’ It’s like, ‘How can we guard that? They don’t even know what they’re running so how do we know?’ And it just makes it a little harder to scout when you can just go out there and say we’re just going to pass the ball, screen and cut and not run any plays.”
Opponents adjusted. Midway through the season, Brown said he could sense teams had scouted some of the Celtics’ randomness. They knew what Boston’s reads would be. He noticed defenders starting to top lock the Celtics’ wings — covering them on the opposite side of the basket to take away a path to the perimeter. That forced Boston to come up with new answers.
For Brown and Tatum, that has become a constant quest. Smart believes their mindset has shifted with experience.
“Just the way that they’re able to adapt to the game,” Smart said. “It’s tough when you’ve got a specific agenda that you’re supposed to do. If you’re a scorer, you’re supposed to score the ball. But what happens when every other team knows you’re trying to score the ball? Can you adapt? Can you still do things to win the game even if you’re not scoring? And that has shown.”
Mazzulla said Brown and Tatum used to know exactly where their shots would come from and how they would produce those looks.
“But I think a part of the development of really good players is that defenses are gonna take all of that away,” said Mazzulla. “That’s actually a compliment. That’s how good you’ve gotten is they’re going to take that away. Now what? So you have to be able to manipulate the environment, you have to be able to then create one on your own.”
That reality led to the latest step in Boston’s evolution.
“Now, if you don’t have a play,” said Mazzulla, “how are they going to guard you?”
At their worst, the Celtics argued and blamed each other for their shortcomings. At their best, they came together to iron out those same weaknesses.
“It was just a part of their game that we all had to develop,” Smart said. “And once we developed it and learned, we got that taste. We seen what a great team we were when moving the ball like great players do and we wanted to be that. We seen, hey, if we move the ball, if we find a great shot for everybody and turn down the good ones and find the great ones, we’re going to be a hell of a team. And we also understand that we’re going to have our moments where we take some heat checks, we go 1-on-1, but it’s going to be at the right times.”
The Celtics offense, once marked by disjointed possessions, now thrives on teamwork and belief. Boston ranked third in half-court offensive efficiency throughout the regular season. In a sign that potentially bodes well for the playoffs, the Celtics scored the same amount of points per possession against the top 10 defenses as they did against all other opponents. They hope their offense will be more consistent throughout the postseason than it was last year.
The execution can still go sideways at times. Their seven fourth-quarter turnovers in Game 5 allowed the Hawks to extend that series with a comeback from 13 points down. For Boston, that stretch carried shades of the collapses from last season’s playoff run. The core players left that loss knowing their decision making let them down.
Two days later, they redeemed themselves by working together to find solution after solution down the stretch of Game 6. Tatum and Brown were involved in it all, like they will need to be for Boston to advance past the 76ers and beyond. In Game 1 against Philadelphia, the Celtics shot a blistering 58.7 percent but committed several late-game blunders before falling behind for good on a James Harden 3-pointer with 8.4 seconds left. Though Boston’s defense deserved much of the blame for the loss, Mazzulla sounded just as upset with some of the offensive execution. He said the Celtics’ strength is their offensive management.
“When you have 20 points off turnovers, when you have 10 live-ball turnovers, when you get outshot by 12 at the 3-point line and you get outshot by 11 in general, it really doesn’t matter what coverage you play,” said Mazzulla. “It’s a variation game at that point. For this team, they’ve been built on defense for a very, very long time. They have the DNA of that and they’re always going to play hard. But we manage the game best with our offensive decision-making and we just have to continue to do that.”
Less than a year-and-a-half ago, this Celtics evolution would have seemed improbable at best. They showed everything they want to be late in Game 6 against the Hawks. Throughout the most critical stretch of the season so far, the Celtics’ faith in each other shined through. Mazzulla trusted his players to make reads. The players trusted each other to be where they should be. The synergy they have worked so hard to build carried them into the second round.
“It’s a lot of making plays, making reads, seeing how the other team is guarding you and playing basketball,” Brown said. “It makes you unpredictable. It makes you have to read the game every single night. It makes you a better basketball player. And at times when the game gets out of control, you’ve gotta be able to have that stability to get everything back in order.”
Reaching this type of togetherness took self-reflection, honesty and a commitment to learning the game on a deeper level. These days, the discussions about Brown and Tatum have changed. The biggest question left about their partnership is whether they can stamp themselves by winning a championship together.
“I think what makes those two guys really good is they’re really good but they know they can get better,” said Mazzulla. “And how many superstars are like that? That’s the piece I kind of felt in them and I wanted to unlock. It was like, I know they’re really good, I know they know they’re good, but I also know they really want to get better. And it was like, how do we do that?”
By changing the way Tatum and Brown viewed the game. By urging them to see it together. And then by trusting them to figure it out.
“It was just a part of their game that we all had to develop,” Smart said. “And once we developed it and learned, we got that taste. We seen what a great team we were when moving the ball like great players do and we wanted to be that. We seen, hey, if we move the ball, if we find a great shot for everybody and turn down the good ones and find the great ones, we’re going to be a hell of a team. And we also understand that we’re going to have our moments where we take some heat checks, we go 1-on-1, but it’s going to be at the right times.”
The Celtics offense, once marked by disjointed possessions, now thrives on teamwork and belief. Boston ranked third in half-court offensive efficiency throughout the regular season. In a sign that potentially bodes well for the playoffs, the Celtics scored the same amount of points per possession against the top 10 defenses as they did against all other opponents. They hope their offense will be more consistent throughout the postseason than it was last year.
The execution can still go sideways at times. Their seven fourth-quarter turnovers in Game 5 allowed the Hawks to extend that series with a comeback from 13 points down. For Boston, that stretch carried shades of the collapses from last season’s playoff run. The core players left that loss knowing their decision making let them down.
Two days later, they redeemed themselves by working together to find solution after solution down the stretch of Game 6. Tatum and Brown were involved in it all, like they will need to be for Boston to advance past the 76ers and beyond. In Game 1 against Philadelphia, the Celtics shot a blistering 58.7 percent but committed several late-game blunders before falling behind for good on a James Harden 3-pointer with 8.4 seconds left. Though Boston’s defense deserved much of the blame for the loss, Mazzulla sounded just as upset with some of the offensive execution. He said the Celtics’ strength is their offensive management.
“When you have 20 points off turnovers, when you have 10 live-ball turnovers, when you get outshot by 12 at the 3-point line and you get outshot by 11 in general, it really doesn’t matter what coverage you play,” said Mazzulla. “It’s a variation game at that point. For this team, they’ve been built on defense for a very, very long time. They have the DNA of that and they’re always going to play hard. But we manage the game best with our offensive decision-making and we just have to continue to do that.”
Less than a year-and-a-half ago, this Celtics evolution would have seemed improbable at best. They showed everything they want to be late in Game 6 against the Hawks. Throughout the most critical stretch of the season so far, the Celtics’ faith in each other shined through. Mazzulla trusted his players to make reads. The players trusted each other to be where they should be. The synergy they have worked so hard to build carried them into the second round.
“It’s a lot of making plays, making reads, seeing how the other team is guarding you and playing basketball,” Brown said. “It makes you unpredictable. It makes you have to read the game every single night. It makes you a better basketball player. And at times when the game gets out of control, you’ve gotta be able to have that stability to get everything back in order.”
Reaching this type of togetherness took self-reflection, honesty and a commitment to learning the game on a deeper level. These days, the discussions about Brown and Tatum have changed. The biggest question left about their partnership is whether they can stamp themselves by winning a championship together.
“I think what makes those two guys really good is they’re really good but they know they can get better,” said Mazzulla. “And how many superstars are like that? That’s the piece I kind of felt in them and I wanted to unlock. It was like, I know they’re really good, I know they know they’re good, but I also know they really want to get better. And it was like, how do we do that?”
By changing the way Tatum and Brown viewed the game. By urging them to see it together. And then by trusting them to figure it out.
