Every week, I gather some thoughts about the Celtics, the NBA, and beyond and dump them here. Because even my writing fell victim to the NBA Cup schedule.
- One of the more interesting subplots of the Celtics season is Joe Mazzulla finding all the chances he can to rip into Josh Minott. If Minott is in the game, changes are Mazzulla is going to find something to harp on. it happened again against the Lakers, once after he was subbed out of the game, and once after Minott committed a bad foul with the Lakers in the bonus.
“Just constantly communicating,” Mazzulla said after beating the Lakers. “He plays a tough role because of his versatility and his ability to - he's defending ball handlers, he's defending screeners, they're changing matchups on him, and just continuing to grow and execute.
“He has a willingness to learn, he has an open-mindedness, and he wants to get better. I think he's gotten a lot better, so it's just a credit to him. He cares about the details. He cares about wanting to get it right, but he plays a unique role for us where he's seen a bunch of different reads over the course of the game on both ends of the floor, and the growth of him is to get to the point where he can just make those on his own consistently. He does a great job studying those things, but it's just communication and teaching. I really enjoy coaching him.”
I tracked Minott down in the locker room to ask him about it, and it turns out he really enjoys getting coached by Mazzulla.
“I love it. You know why? Because it means he's thinking about me,” Minott told me. “Every time Joe yells at me, I love it because it's like, I'm a priority in that moment. You know what I mean? That's how I be viewing it. And it’s always the right thing. He's always coaching me. He's never leading me astray. I mean, yeah, man, I'm a yell back. We love each other.”
I think Mazzulla might be exactly what Minott needed. He spent years in Minnesota hoping to grow and become a better player and it didn’t work out. Now he’s here in Boston and thrilled to be getting yelled at because it finally means someone is paying attention to him. If anything, this says as much about his time with the Timberwolves as it does his situation with Mazzulla.
And Minott might be perfect for Joe, too. Mazzulla can dish it out and be as big a lunatic as he wants and Minott will take it, process it, and dish it right back. Mazzulla loves that stuff. He throws punches hoping someone will punch back.
- Minott paid me what I consider to be a pretty nice compliment when he started busting my chops after I requested to talk to him, saying I ask “federal ass questions.” I can’t imagine a better reputation to have among the players.
- I also love my reputation as “guy who likes guys who cut for baskets.”
Two of them ... things of beauty https://t.co/ollxEktmZh pic.twitter.com/xFclzv70Hp
— John Karalis 🇬🇷 (@John_Karalis) December 6, 2025
If I was a role player in the NBA I’d master the art of cutting and feast on the easy points it got me. I’ll never understand why guys don’t do it more (I do actually understand it. It’s because they want to shoot 3-pointers. But I needed that line for the dramatic effect).
- The NBA screwed the fans and Amazon in a big way with this game. The Emirates NBA Cup has condensed the early part of the schedule to a ridiculous degree. The fact that both these teams played last night in different cities is outrageous.
I bet the NBA thought LeBron James would sit the front-end of the back-to-back so he could play in the nationally televised game, but with Luka Dončić out, the Lakers went all out for the game they thought they could win more easily. Who knew that would be the tough one?
Regardless of how the teams approached it, the should never have been in this position. We all wanted to see a back-and-forth battle where Jaylen Brown was going shot-for-shot with Doncic, and for the Celtics to sent Dončić and LeBron home sad again.
Sure, this was a fun enough win, but we were robbed of a marquee game.
- LeBron’s streak of games with double digit scoring ended in Toronto. You don’t have to like the guy, but I do think him passing up a decent look a 2-pointer to get Rui Hachimura a wide open corner 3 is a great sign of leadership and teamwork.
No one would have questioned him taking the final shot. He either would have made it and got to 10 on a game-winner, or missed it and given himself five more minutes to try to get it. But he chose to pass it and it worked out perfectly.
- JJ Redick on Boston’s shooting: “I mean, look, Jaylen Brown is a low 30% off the dribble 3-point shooter. He hits three threes in a row in the third quarter. Jordan Walsh, we were willing to live with, you know, his threes, we’ve got to give up something, he hits four of them. We ended up getting a contest on three of them. So again, you’ve got to be willing to live with certain things, and they made us pay. You know, we’ve obviously done that many times, and they made us pay tonight.”
Walsh is going to get this treatment plenty more this season. This is why the consistency is now the most important part of his game. I don’t expect him to continue shooting 45.5% from 3, but he has to get good enough where teams don’t have this attitude.
He has exactly one (1) full season to do it. If he can accomplish this goal while maintaining his defensive intensity, he will become a crucial part of next season’s team. If he forces teams to guard him at the 3-point line next season when Jayson Tatum is fully healthy, then there won’t be many options for teams to double Tatum or Brown.
- By the way that also applies to Minott.
- Sam Hauser on watching role players fight for their minutes: “Oh it’s great. A lot of these guys are just taking advantage of the opportunity that they haven’t gotten yet in their careers and it’s pretty cool to see. And guys are making jumps and seeing what they can do out there is pretty special, and learning about them up close and also from afar, like when you’re on the bench watching them, it’s pretty cool to see. When you see someone come into their own out there and what their thing is that can keep them on the court, it’s pretty special.”
- If Brad Stevens can count Walsh, Minott, and Hugo Gonzalez as hits when next season starts, then this season will be a massive success. If all three of those guys end up in the rotation next season, then give Stevens a lifetime contract to run the team.
Don’t worry. If he gets too full of himself, the Celtics can still run him out of town and he can go run the Carolina Tarheels program or something.
- Boston’s offense has shot up to third in the NBA while their defensive rating is now 17th. Their net rating is still fifth overall at +7.2, but I think a few blowout wins this season are doing a lot of heavy lifting.
“Everybody overanalyzes the beginning of the year so much,” Payton Pritchard said after the game. “It's just like, we're trying to figure out roles. Everybody's in a different role. Different offense from the couple years we played, and different shots. But we’re slowly starting to figure out when's the time to be more aggressive in certain moments for guys like me — obviously, like, JB, D-White, they're gonna be aggressive all game. But once everybody figures that out, that's what makes the offense great.”
I’m very curious to see where the defensive rating settles. They have good individual defenders but they still foul too much and allow too many second chances. They are better at rebounding, but I also don’t think they have solved it yet.
- I don’t mind alternate jerseys, but I was pretty happy to see the Celtics and Lakers go traditional with the white vs. gold matchup in this game. There's just something so comforting about watching those uniforms going up and down the floor.
- Do Jake LaRavia and Austin Reaves go as each other for Halloween?
- I complimented Jordan Walsh’s outfit ONE TIME and this is how Jaylen Brown responds?