It’s Friday, it’s June, and the Boston Celtics are no longer playing basketball. Here are some leftover thoughts to chew on as we head into the first weekend without Celtics basketball in quite some time.
- Sigh
Miami was making their standard fourth quarter run. They did what they had been doing against Boston, making shots, switching to a zone, getting some stops, and piling up some points. Denver’s 21-point lead to start the fourth had been whittled down to 10.
Here’s what Nikola Jokic did.
Two straight mid-range jumpers and the lead was back to 14. But look at Aaron Gordon on the baseline occupying Bam Adebayo’s attention. Jokic is eight feet away from the rim but Adebayo now has two guys in his zone area and he’s worried about the pass going to the Gordon for the dunk.
The Nuggets send baseline cutters against the zone while the Celtics keep their corner’s spaced. This is the difference in philosophy in a nutshell.
Boston is built on the 3-pointer, so they're hoping any pass to the middle will collapse the defense to open up the outside shot. Denver is looking to get a bucket no matter where it is. The cutters make the layup possible, but they also occupy attention, so Jokic drills a couple of eight-footers.
When the defense decides they can’t let him do that, THEN he finds guys on the perimeter.
And even then Kentavious Caldwell-Pope decides the wide open middy is preferable to a lightly contested 3-pointer. Boston would have launched the 3.
Denver handled Miami’s late run perfectly. They didn’t panic, they made good looks no matter where they were on the floor, and they didn’t just milk the clock for the sake of milking it. They milked the clock by hitting shots and shortening the amount of time Miami had to come all the way back.
Miami ended up running out of time and instead of the confidence-building late run, they ended up losing by double-digits.
Boston is a team that wants to go for knockouts even when they're ahead on all the cards. No one wants to just win the fight by being smart, throwing some body blows, and finishing things off strong.
Jokic was special in this game, but the Celtics have the personnel to do exactly what Denver did. They just choose not to.
- Joe Mazzulla is the best path forward
We have entered deep overreaction territory when it comes to Mazzulla. Here’s an actual email I received:
“Just how bottomlessly incompetent would he have had to be in order to get fired? Was there no limit? Is it really worse to have a fourth coach in four years than it is to have a coach so bad he's making me fantasize about bringing Pitino back?”
Alright, alright, alright enough already.
People are piling on at this point because he’s the easy target. The talking heads on sports talk radio have latched onto it, turned up the volume on it, and regurgitated it to an exaggerated degree because it lights up the phone lines.
Yes, Mazzulla was out-coached by Erik Spoelstra. But the players were out-played by guys like Caleb Martin, who absolutely stunk in Game 1 of the Finals. The players showed no heart in key situations. The players missed open shots they’d been making all season.
In their last two games, Marcus Smart and Derrick White were 4-10 on wide open shots. Everyone else was 2-9. Overall on open shots, Boston was 10-41 in their final two games. They were 7-25 on open shots in Game 7. If they had just hit the open ones, the Celtics might just be in the Finals.
So for all his faults, the Celtics were still within reach of the Finals, and that has to count for something.
Still, his coaching strategy played into some of the issues at hand, and that's something that has to be addressed. So where does that leave the Celtics? Fire Mazzulla, or give him a better chance to succeed?
Mazzulla took over two days before media day, never got a chance to fully implement his own plan nor hire his own coaching staff. The Celtics ended up being the second-best team in the NBA, second in offense, and second in defense. Maybe instead of throwing out all the good that he was able to accomplish (c’mon now, time to admit he did some good things too), the Celtics can get together with him, get everyone on the same page, give Mazzulla a summer to plan, and put together a coaching staff that will execute the vision.
I know the vision should probably be tweaked a bit. But I’ll say again that it’s more destructive to this team to fire Mazzulla and hire another new voice.
Let me put it this way: Brad Stevens has one more coaching move in him before the Celtics become the Timberwolves. Now is not the time to play that card. You might be screaming anyone is better than Mazzulla, but that's objectively not true and if the next guy isn’t “the guy,” then the whole thing will fall apart.
Giving Mazzulla the offseason to plan, the chance to hire the right coaches, and then move forward with a unified voice is the best path forward right now. This is the best chance Boston has.
- Something was up at the end
One of us will find out what happened in the locker room to end the season, but when I look at how guys were after losing to Miami versus after losing to Golden State last season, I see guys who weren’t exactly crushed by the loss. Smart’s postgame presser might have sounded like it came after a January loss.
That's not to say Smart didn’t care, but I also get the feeling like he might not have minded getting away from things. Al Horford’s postgame was similarly devoid of devastation.
Maybe those guys think this was their ceiling with this group. All I know is that guys who I normally look to as beacons for how this team is feeling were oddly, seemingly, unbothered to some degree. Maybe unbothered isn’t the right word. Maybe it’s “less bothered than I expected.” Either way, there's more to this story.
- The new CBA sucks
I’ll get into this more next week, but the more I find out about this new collective bargaining agreement, the more I hate it. If there's one thing I hope to be very wrong about, it’s this.
The short version is the league has basically created a hard cap with its second apron -- call it a ‘supertax.’ Teams in that range, of which Boston will likely be without some maneuvering, will be handcuffed when it comes to making moves, basically only allowed to make trades sending out one player and not taking back any additional salary.
The Malcolm Brogdon deal wouldn’t have been allowed had Boston been a supertax team under this new CBA. And that's only part of it.
This deal targets Golden State and the Clippers, but it’s going to end up blowing up every team that drafts well, holds onto its stars, and ultimately has to pay them. Teams that get multiple stars in the draft, develop them, and end up having to pay them supermax extensions because they're that good, will have to basically surround those guys with minimum to mid-level deals if they hope to retain any level of maneuverability.
I think this deal will get scrapped as soon as possible. Its arrival comes at the worst time for Boston. I’m going to need a few days to process things to make sure I’m not overreacting to it myself.
- Monty Williams gets the farm from Detroit
This is one of the most incredible coaching contracts of all time.
Monty Williams is getting a 6-year, $78.5 million coaching deal that could reach $100 million with incentives. It’s easily the biggest coaching deal in league history.
Williams hasn’t won a title and is barely above .500 in the playoffs, but he is one of the NBA’s best “culture” guys. He’s highly respected by his players and, frankly, Detroit needs a bit of a culture change to move forward.
I’m happy for Williams. He’s been through a lot in life. He’s a very good coach and I hope he turns things around in Detroit.
