Is Joe Mazzula a good coach or not really?

[iLLmatic860]

I think he's very good and still learning while at it.

However regardless of the lineup we have on court, each player looks clear on their role in offense and defense and everyone plays together. There is clarity of message and the players are even talking his language now. These are the signs of a good coach.

We’ll see I guess.

Yeah at this point thats what I’m pretty much basing it on. Also, How he carries himself and how the team responds to it. Brad Stevens is very smart, if I were A C’s fan I would feel comfortable knowing that Stevens is very comfortable with it

So yeah but we all know how fast perception can change in the nba once playoffs start. I think yall are the best team in the east so it’s yours to lose imo

[celtxman]

For me the jury is still out. If you're a Celtics fan you say he's essentially clinched best record in the NBA so how do you criticize him? If you're against Mazzulla and the Celtics you draw comfort in the Celtics losing this type of game and insert your team being able to beat the Celtics with Mazzulla as coach.
My personal critique was put to words in the press conference. At the end of regulation against Atlanta he described the end of game strategy this way " give JT (Tatum) the ball and have him make a play for us."
As a fan that is an unacceptable take because this has not worked many times this season and there is too much talent on the floor to take this approach. The Celtics spacing was bad and the shot was bad with 6 seconds to work with. That is mostly on the coach. Personally I've said before in this forum I want to see Derrick White handling the ball.
Two losses to Atanta don't mean anything- unless this poor play in close games continues and the Celtics don't adjust. If they don't adjust they might let Mazzulla go.

[Wigginstime]

Joe is a "MATH" coach. He extensively studies the game of the basketball and leans on the math to create the most efficient lineups that utilize the most efficient defensive and offensive schemes.

The scary thing about "Math" basketball is it can result in a team becoming predictable and exploitable in the playoffs. Joe himself has admitted this with a statement along the lines "i failed my team because i failed to have a curve ball ready for the playoffs when the math doesn't hold up".

Lebron talked about this. Its very easy for teams to look at the math and decide they are going to always switch on screens because the math says this generates the best defensive result for their team. Come playoffs once another team realizes they switch 100% of the time, a good team will then just endless abuse this fact to matchup hunt and exploit.

[Frank Dux]

Take away Tatum, Brown etc and give him bellow .500 team..he would grt fired in a week

Weird way to judge a coach. Every team in the league would bottom out if you remove the top two guys.

[Harry Garris]

He's really good at organizing and galvanizing the team. The players all seem to really like him, and for the most part they play hard for him, something this group had struggled to do in the past before the second half of Ime Udoka's year coaching the C's. He also has them playing really smart basketball, they pass the ball around a ton and find open shots all the time and are a low turnover team, that's great offensive scheming.

I honestly think he's good at about 95% of what matters for a coach to be good at. Does he have weaknesses with late game offense and maybe managing the flow of a game when opposing teams go on these huge runs against the Celtics from time to time in the 4th quarter? Yeah, absolutely.

But he's still a good coach overall for the Celtics and I highly doubt they could fire him and find someone who fixes his weak points without giving up something in terms of gameplanning and managing the egos on this team. Okay, he's not prime Greg Popovich or current day Erik Spoelstra as a coach, but no one is. If that's the main criticism you can levy against a coach then he's doing a pretty good job.

[Harry Garris]

Joe is a "MATH" coach. He extensively studies the game of the basketball and leans on the math to create the most efficient lineups that utilize the most efficient defensive and offensive schemes.

The scary thing about "Math" basketball is it can result in a team becoming predictable and exploitable in the playoffs. Joe himself has admitted this with a statement along the lines "i failed my team because i failed to have a curve ball ready for the playoffs when the math doesn't hold up".

Lebron talked about this. Its very easy for teams to look at the math and decide they are going to always switch on screens because the math says this generates the best defensive result for their team. Come playoffs once another team realizes they switch 100% of the time, a good team will then just endless abuse this fact to matchup hunt and exploit.

Yeah but the Celtics don't really have any bad matchups to exploit unless you have a Nikola Jokic on your team.

The one way you can try to attack their switching is to go at Porzingis but this can be solved just by putting Porzingis on the other team's weakest shooter and then having him drop. The only team in the NBA that really has the personnel to actually take advantage of this is the Nuggets because they can attack Porzingis without having to sacrifice a bunch of size on the other end. No other team in the NBA can do this because for other teams in order to put 5 offensive threats on the floor they have to go small and when you do that against the Celtics you're dead.

[Saints14]

He's a victim of inheriting an already good team in a good organization, but under his leadership the Celtics this year are better than they've ever been in the Jays era. He deserves props for their regular season, but we all know it's gonna come down to how they do in the playoffs

[cupcakesnake]

Celtics have been ridiculously consistent all season long. They play really hard every night. Their offensive scheme really suits their personnel, and their defensive scheme is flexible and creative.

It's very difficult to assess coaching, but anything that's visible to us points to Mazzulla doing a fantastic job this year.

[Cavsfansince84]

Yeah but the Celtics don't really have any bad matchups to exploit unless you have a Nikola Jokic on your team.

The one way you can try to attack their switching is to go at Porzingis but this can be solved just by putting Porzingis on the other team's weakest shooter and then having him drop. The only team in the NBA that really has the personnel to actually take advantage of this is the Nuggets because they can attack Porzingis without having to sacrifice a bunch of size on the other end. No other team in the NBA can do this because for other teams in order to put 5 offensive threats on the floor they have to go small and when you do that against the Celtics you're dead.

You say all of that but the Celtics just lost b2b games against a bad Hawks team that's missing half its roster. The reason is that the Celtics still have some bad tendencies as a team that come up at times and do have some weaknesses(Joe included). Are they a very good rs team? Absolutely. Do they have a gear that most championship teams need to reach in order to finish out games and win it all? No one knows yet but I think most are leaning towards no. I don't think that many people have confidence in Tatum being that guy on a title team(even in Boston).

[Harry Garris]

Yeah but the Celtics don't really have any bad matchups to exploit unless you have a Nikola Jokic on your team.

The one way you can try to attack their switching is to go at Porzingis but this can be solved just by putting Porzingis on the other team's weakest shooter and then having him drop. The only team in the NBA that really has the personnel to actually take advantage of this is the Nuggets because they can attack Porzingis without having to sacrifice a bunch of size on the other end. No other team in the NBA can do this because for other teams in order to put 5 offensive threats on the floor they have to go small and when you do that against the Celtics you're dead.

You say all of that but the Celtics just lost b2b games against a bad Hawks team that's missing half its roster. The reason is that the Celtics still have some bad tendencies as a team that come up at times and do have some weaknesses(Joe included). Are they a very good rs team? Absolutely. Do they have a gear that most championship teams need to reach in order to finish out games and win it all? No one knows yet but I think most are leaning towards no. I don't think that many people have confidence in Tatum being that guy on a title team(even in Boston).

I'm not saying the Celtics are going to go 16-0 in the playoffs, I just think they have an overwhelming talent advantage against anyone they play against which means it's going to be nearly impossible to beat them 4 out of 7 times even if you're better at executing on offense in the last couple of minutes of the game than they are.

Overcoming talent disparities in a 7 game series is REALLY difficult to do. There's a reason that upsets are so rare in the NBA playoffs and when they do happen are typically a result of a major injury.