Brad Stevens knew something had to change heading into this season. Running it back wasn’t going to be an option, so he set out to remake a roster that had gotten close, but not close enough.
He made the tough decisions to move Marcus Smart and Robert Williams. Malcolm Brogdon and Grant Williams were victims of circumstance. But in the end, Stevens got his guys in Kristaps Porzingis and Jrue Holiday, and built a team that enters the season as one of the strong favorites to win a championship.
Maybe the most telling sign of how well things are going is what’s not being said. No one has mentioned the guys who left, aside from a couple of early camp jokes about Grant Williams affinity for the spoken word. There hasn’t been a single reference to making up for anyone who was lost. There hasn’t been so much as a peep about filling the hole left by the recently traded players.
That might speak to the focus of this group, or maybe it’s just that things have gone so well that those guys are just part of the past.
The past doesn’t seem to concern this group much. Last year’s theme was about unfinished business, so much so that it became their playoff slogan. It turns out that was less of a motivator that people thought, so this year’s group is dialed in on the day-to-day.
And they're doing that at the behest of their head coach, Joe Mazzulla, who is in his second year leading the team, but in his first as the official head coach from day one. He has assembled his own staff and put his own plan together. And he did it with the full reflection of things that went well and went wrong for him last season.
“I mean, there’s a ton,” Mazzulla said on media day. “(I’m) just really trying to develop a mindset and a perspective throughout each journey of our season, knowing that we have to get better every single day, and just kind of handling when things go your way and when they don’t go your way. … And then at the same time, being able to just reinvent and express myself as a coach and then allow the space for our team to express who they are and then create a shared identity, create shared ownership, and a shared vision for where we want to be toward the end of the year.”
The players have taken note. Jaylen Brown called it the best preseason he’s been a part of in Boston. Many players have noted how this year’s camp involves more team drills than individual ones. The emphasis is on more specific things, and on things that they didn’t really address as much last season.
“We’ve been real clear in our roles, we’re clear what we want to get accomplished,” Brown said. “We’re clear in what actions we want to get into, late game, 3-for-2 situations, 2-for-1 situations. We’ve been able to really establish exactly what we want to do. It’s been really good coaching this year.”
The coaching is coming from the entire staff. Sam Cassell and Charles Lee are the standout hires from this season, and both are paying big dividends. In addition to that, there has been a steady stream of former Celtics, including Paul Pierce and Rajon Rondo, joining the team to share their expertise. Jayson Tatum says Mazzulla has “helped change the culture a little bit -- in a lot of ways, honestly. I feel like he’s had his imprint on how he wants things to be, how he wants to practice, how he wants the environment, the vibe. And we’ve all bought in. … It’s his thing, he’s the coach. And it’s been really cool to see that.”
With a firm plan and everyone on board, Mazzulla is now in the process of figuring out how to best deploy a group of six players who are fully capable of starting and finishing games. There has been a lot of talk of sacrifice, but nothing to truly sacrifice as of yet. It’s very easy to stand in front of a microphone and talk about how everyone has to sacrifice when you think “everyone” is really “everyone besides me.” There are no crunch time minutes in the preseason, and sitting out is more of an opportunity to get some rest than it is a signal of a player’s future role.
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The first test of Mazzulla’s coaching might will be when a real game is on the line and a really good player is sitting on the bench watching the rest of the group finish things off … or worse, watching them lose.
“Nothing's ever given with the players. You have to have conversations, but I had conversations with all of them,” Mazzulla said. “This isn't an Al (Horford) question. This isn't an Al versus a Jrue question. This is ‘everybody in your organization has to sacrifice.’ It just looks different for each person. And we're all going to have to do it at some point in time throughout the season.”
This easily falls under the “good problem to have” umbrella, and if everyone is truly on board then it isn’t much of a problem at all. The Celtics have a few very good options that could be used in different situations.
Boston can go big with Porzingis and Horford together, go small with one of those guys sitting and Tatum at the 4, or even super-small with Tatum at the 5 from time to time. Mazzulla is trying bits of everything to figure out how to best deploy his team in certain situations. His search for curveballs this season can lead him to some interesting lineups, and they all have a chance to work very well together.
And that's where the optimism really kicks into high gear. Yes, it’s great to hear how far Mazzulla has come in a short time as a coach, but championships are won by great players. And Boston has great players.
Porzingis already looks like a perfect fit next to Tatum and Brown. Simple screening actions offer up multiple options, and that's all a team needs to do to create good opportunities. All of those options need to be respected, and a defense that has to make multiple quick decisions on how to defend those is bound to make mistakes.
We’ve seen defenses worry too much about Brown or Tatum and leave Porzingis open. We’ve seen teams worry too much about Derrick White in the lane and open up paths to alley oops. The addition of a guy that big who can do everything he can do has unlocked quite a bit in a short time.
Meanwhile, we’ve seen Tatum start to add elements to his game that can turn him into an unstoppable machine. His work in the post threatens to elevate his game to an MVP level, an ominous sign for the rest of the NBA who will have to contend with an elite scorer with good size who is also a willing passer in that situation.
And we’ve seen some intense defensive pressure, led by Holiday, as the Celtics have shown an ability to pick up full court and be disruptive for long stretches. The defense is behind the offense right now, but the emphasis is there. Mazzulla has admitted that he didn’t think he had to focus on defense as much last year because it should have been a given. But nothing is given with basketball players.
That goes for the offense, too. “Mazzulla Ball” has become a bit of a pejorative around here, used to bemoan an emphasis on 3-point shooting above all else. But Mazzulla’s true desire for this team isn’t for them to just take 50 3-pointers and hope for the best. He’s very math-heavy in his thinking but the math isn’t just focused on one column.
“If you saw 80% of our box scores, we won the three point margin, but we lost the shot margin and we were able to make up for that because we were kind of a really skilled offensive team,” he said. “We usually won the free throw margin because we didn't foul on the defensive end. But that's not a recipe for long term in the playoffs and on nights when it's not going well.”
The Celtics rarely won when they shot poorly. They were 10-14 in the regular season when they shot below 33% from deep. Mazzulla doesn’t want to be held down that much by shooting variance, so he’s put an added emphasis on forcing turnovers and getting offensive rebounds. They still won’t be shy about shooting 3-pointers, but they will also gladly trade a few for better shots so they can get the volume they need to protect against 3s not falling.
So the coach saw a lot of the things we all saw last year, but the experience of last year’s failures has shaped a new approach.
That's a fancy way of saying he’s learning.
Not only is he learning, and not only are guys happy about that, he now has experienced voices on his staff and throughout the organization ready to pitch in when he needs some extra help. The top six players are as good as anyone else’s top six. The President of Basketball Operations is ready and willing to fill any gap that might arise over the course of the season, and the ownership group is on board with it all.
There's a different vibe around the team. It’s one that has fueled a ton of optimism, present company included. They will hit roadblocks and adversity along the way because while they are great, they are not perfect. How they get through the rough patches will either be validation for optimism or cause for concern.
They start this journey Wednesday night in New York. I suggest paying close attention to this season. I believe they're a championship team. I’m not alone.
