The Celtics had a plan. It called for their regulars to sit out the third preseason game, played Friday night against the Hornets in Greensboro, NC, and then ramp up with a final tuneup next Friday against the Raptors in Montreal.
After two games, we’d seen enough to know that this team’s work and focus in practice had them regular season-ready in a hurry. The biggest thing everyone has been talking about has been how focused and mature this team has been. A night to rest legs and avoid the risk of injury made sense.
But Jaylen Brown decided he wanted to “keep his rhythm,” and the Celtics decided to let him play.
Let’s mark this down as Joe Mazzulla’s first bad decision of the season.
For whatever reason, Brown wanted to play in this, the most meaningless of games, when there's a whole week off before the next game and plenty of time to find his rhythm again. Okay, fine. Players want to play. I get that. He’s been rolling for the first couple of games and he wanted to keep it rolling. I understand that, too.
But it’s Mazzulla’s job to protect players from themselves sometimes. Guys will always want to play, but sometimes it’s best if they don’t. Mazzulla needed to take a stand, and he’s lucky Brown came out of the game in one piece.
Playing Brown in this game was a horrible idea, and it put one of the most important players on the team at risk for injury. He took a few falls and after each one I was expecting the worst. Luckily, he was fine, even though he had one extraordinarily close call.
I know there's a risk of injury in every game, but that's exactly why you don’t worry about playing him in this one.
Mazzulla and the team have to be able to stand up to a player making a poor decision like this and do what’s best for the team. The five 3-pointers Brown hit won’t make any difference in December or January. If Brown drops 60 on the Memphis Grizzlies on February 12, no one will say “it’s a good thing he stayed in rhythm in that preseason game against Charlotte.”
Maybe if Mazzulla didn’t have the interim tag, he would have made a different decision. Maybe if he wasn’t thrust into this spot, he’d feel better about saying no and saving one of his star players from himself. Even if Brown was trying to set some kind of example, that same impact could have been made in practice somehow.
The Charlotte Hornets are desperate and chaotic. The first quarter of this game was a raggedy mess. This was not the opponent or situation for a team to throw a star player out there to keep his rhythm.
And if you think I’m somehow being dramatic, just look at how close Brown came to landing on Kelly Oubre’s foot on this landing spot foul:
The lower left leg looked like it buckled a little bit. And if Oubre’s foot was over just one more inch, that could have been a sprained ankle or worse. Frankly, Brown saved himself by splaying out his feet a little bit to avoid Oubre.
Things have already been bad enough for the Celtics, and they’ve done a wonderful job of getting past a lot of it. But the reason they’ve been able to do what they’ve done is focus and discipline. That applies to everyone on the court, and it should apply to the coaching staff too.
Mazzulla is in a tough spot, and so far, he’s managed a lot of things well. This team looks ready to storm out of the gates and pile up the wins over the course of the season.
This, though, was a big mistake. It’s like texting and driving and looking up just in time to avoid an accident. In the end, it’s no harm, no foul, but we know the real story is that Boston was this close to disaster and they narrowly avoided it.
Mazzulla got a freebie this time, but he can’t let something like this happen again. Players will always want to play, even if it’s against better judgment. Mazzulla has to be the voice of reason.