Once again, Joe Mazzulla’s timeout strategy is in the spotlight. Late in the loss to Minnesota, Mazzulla opted to let Jaylen Brown isolate over the final 10 seconds rather than take a timeout, which resulted in a missed shot. Then in the overtime, Anthony Edwards hit three straight buckets to cap a 9-0 run that went uninterrupted by a Celtics timeout.
There isn’t much complaint about the Brown jumper. He got a clean look on a shot he hits plenty of the time and it didn’t fall. The 9-0 run is where the complaining is loudest. After the game, Mazzulla explained his thinking.
“We like to save our timeouts so we have two under (the three-minute mark),” Mazzulla said after the game, explaining that his strategy is to try to keep two timeouts in his pocket in close games like this until he absolutely needs them should he need to extend a close game.
Remember, it doesn’t matter how many timeouts a team has, both sides enter the fourth quarter with four and they only have two below the 3:00 mark (which is why you see some interesting timeouts with three-something on the clock. Teams will call the “use it or lose it” timeout just to talk things over or grab some rest because the timeout goes away regardless). Both teams get two timeouts in overtime.
Having two timeouts in those late-game situations can help save precious seconds by advancing the ball to half-court instead of dribbling it up against the defense. That can add a possession and help capitalize on two-for-one opportunities.
The notion of timeouts as momentum-stoppers is one of the driving forces behind the criticism of Mazzulla, even though there's no evidence of them effectively stopping momentum at all. Boston opened up their game against Indiana on a 14-6 run when Rick Carlisle called a timeout, and Boston came out of that and pushed it to 20-8. He called another timeout when Boston came out on a 7-1 run to start the third, and Boston outscored them 12-4 after that.
The bottom line is sometimes those timeouts work and sometimes they don’t. We’re just so used to them being taken that it feels wrong when they're not.
On Monday night, Boston scored the next four points after the 9-0 run without calling a timeout. What Boston really needed was a stop after Jayson Tatum’s steal and dunk made it a three-point game with :36 to go.
“When it’s a five-point game, we managed it well,” Mazzulla said. “We went to a flip play and (Kristaps Porzingis) went to the free throw line and then we cut it to a one-possession game.”
Instead, Jaden McDaniels hit a pull up jumper after Kristaps Porzingis stumbled. If they had gotten the stop, they could have called timeout, set up a quick play to score and then foul. Then they would have had another timeout to call after the free throws, make or miss, to get one more decent look to tie or win the game.
Right now you might be thinking that rolling the dice on the momentum stopper is better. And there will be plenty of NBA head coaches who agree with you, too. The point of this isn’t to tell you what’s right or wrong, necessarily. It’s to explain to you what Mazzulla is talking about when he says he wants to save the timeouts.
There were two close games recently that highlight why Mazzulla likes to keep his timeouts.
The Lakers and Clippers played an overtime game that the Lakers won by five. Paul George fouled out of the game early in the overtime, and Ty Lue burned one of his timeouts to challenge a call that looked pretty obvious. The strategy in those situations is to force the refs to reevaluate if they really want to foul out a star player on a ticky-tack foul, but this call was pretty obvious.
They lost the challenge and their timeout. Then they called their final timeout when the Lakers went on a 7-0 run to stop momentum. They were down five, but with :48 seconds left, they were down just three. With no timeouts to advance the ball, draw a play, and change personnel, they ended up getting a Russell Westbrook 3-point attempt, which missed.
Christian Wood hammered home a putback to make it a five-point game with nine seconds left and that was it.
The Hornets and Mavericks played a classic last week that didn’t go to overtime, but featured a similarly botched timeout situation.
First, they called a timeout with 2:59 on the clock, down six after a quick Dallas run. That left them with one timeout the rest of the way. LaMelo Ball was cooking that night and he kept them close after that. Gordon Hayward made it a three-point game with :32 to go and then they forced 24-second violation. But after calling their last timeout, they couldn't inbound the ball and turned it over on a five-second call. With no second timeout, they had no wiggle room.
Mazzulla and assistant Matt Reynolds both told me they watch the last five minutes of every close game in the NBA, so there's no doubt they saw these games. There's no doubt games like these solidified the timeout strategy.
In the end, it’s a strategy, not a rule. There is no rule when it comes to using them, despite there being a lot of opinions. The use of timeouts and the justification of using or not using them almost always depends on some hypothetical. I’m not saying Mazzulla is right or wrong using them the way he does. This is just how he approaches them. When you’re wondering why he’s not calling them at some points of a game, keep stuff like this in mind.