The differences between Mazzulla's and Udoka's approach quickly became clear. Udoka, throughout his one season in Boston, would offer blunt assessments of his players to the media. Udoka blasted his team for a lack of mental toughness in January 2022 after Boston blew its fourth lead of at least 19 points that season. The same could be said for Boston's on-court approach. Udoka typically leaned on bigger, stronger, more defensive-oriented lineups. The pairing of Al Horford and Robert Williams became a lineup staple, and the bruising Grant Williams was the team's lead reserve. Mazzulla spent this season hewing to smaller and faster lineups with more shooting. After Robert Williams had knee surgery just before the start of training camp, the Horford-Williams pairing hardly saw the court until late in the second round against the Philadelphia 76ers, with Mazzulla instead preferring to start Derrick White. Grant Williams flitted in and out of Boston's rotation, with Mazzulla instead leaning on offseason addition Malcolm Brogdon in a move to provide a more dynamic offensive attack. "The 3-point attempt rate is the most important stat in the game of basketball," Mazzulla said after a loss to the Brooklyn Nets in March, in part explaining his approach to the game, "because of the pace of play, because of the shot selection and because of the ability to go on runs." https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/37603481/the-celtics-biggest-issues-came-roaring-back-game-7-now
Mazulla is the black Mike D'antoni with Moreyball philosophy. Udoka blasting his team for lack of mental toughness is the best thing to happen to Tatum.
Done more? He hasn't won as many games or championships. I don't think it's even fair to say he's had less. The guy had LeBron, Wade and Bosh at one point. But what he's doing with these Butler led teams is impressive. No doubt.
Eric is a great coach, but that’s a stretch. Pop is down to earth person as well as I’ve had an opportunity to chat with him over the weekend at the airport here in DC.
Maybe it's just Me but sometimes when I read posts about "Ime" I read it as "I-me"... still getting used to the thought of him being our coach I guess. Regardless I'm glad we have him to call out our best or worst players for lack of effort/focus overall. Love it.
Didn't Miami win because of abnormally high 3 point shooting in its 4 wins? People try to overassign causation to random events all the time. But, random events are random. Miami nearly pulled off the greatest collapse in history (not metaphorically, but statistically a collapse unlike any ever before) then Jayson Tatum tweaks his ankle and they're the greatest upsetters in history again.
Miami randomly forced Boston into bad 3pt shooting and Miami randomly had guys wide open for 3. Coach Spoelstra randomly outcoached Coach Mazzulla too. FWIW the only game Miami won solely due to hot 3pt shooting was game 1. If they shot their average they still would have won games 2,3 and 7.
Simmon after the game on his podcast mentioned that he missed Ime holding the players accountable. That type of coach is exactly what we needed most, IMO.
Coaching would be telling Holfort to run them off the line. Holford was just slow footed and unwilling to guard out to the line He really should have yanked Holford Brown was atrocious last night Don't know if he had a better option So many ill advised 3's . . .. I don't mind threes but Launching them before you even setup the offense was crazy He managed only 2 championships with 3 of the top 10 (if not 5) in the league at the time on one team Rocket River
Didn’t the Rockets eliminate the Spurs in 95 because Robert Horry had a game with 5 three pointers and another game with 6 three pointers in that series in addition to Hakeem/Clyde? Didn’t Kenny the Jet hit 7 three pointers in game 1 of the Finals to lead a miraculous come back and break the Magic? Were those events all random as well or just clutch players making clutch plays? The thing is Miami didn’t collapse even though almost nobody would have predicted them to go up 3-0 let alone make it out of the First round and advance to the Finals. I know you and the Harden fanboi club would be losing their MFing minds if Butler was replaced by Harden with the same supporting cast and went on that type of run. Nobody has done more with less than Butler in getting to the Finals since the last time he made a run in 2020. Prior to that it’s probably 94 Hakeem or one of Lebron’s early teams. Give props when it’s due.
Coaching would have been: But imagine this: The Miami Heat smell blood and start hunting Tatum down like wounded prey, using screens and ball movement to force him into the action over and over again, where his wobbly left leg simply cannot hold up. Suddenly the Heat are puncturing Boston's defense every trip up the floor; Tatum's teammates, largely playing 4-on-5, are scrambling like mad to coordinate help, contest layups, close out to shooters, and box out underneath. The Celtics are constantly on the brink of drowning; the breakneck work of it drives them to the point of exhaustion. The Heat get into a dangerous rhythm and threaten to sprint off into the distance playing fast, merciless, deliriously telegenic basketball. That part you'll have to imagine. For reasons passing understanding, the Heat largely declined to exploit Tatum's spaghetti leg. The hobbled swingman played 42 minutes Sunday night, including all 22 pre-garbage time minutes of the second half, but according to the NBA's stats service Tatum was the closest defender on just nine Heat shot attempts, fewer than five other Celtics players and 12th most among all players. Robert Williams III, who played just 14 minutes in Game 7, contested 11 shots. Derrick White, who after Marcus Smart was Boston's best perimeter defender, contested a whopping 22 shots. Boston reacted to Tatum's injury by hiding him on whichever Miami player was stationed in the weakside corner, and Miami responded to Tatum's injury by repeatedly throwing themselves at Boston's best and least physically compromised defensive players. Miami won the game by a lot, so I cannot condemn them as fools, but it sure would've been a lot lovelier to watch if they hadn't chosen the path of most resistance.
How so? His only wins are with super teams while losing to Pop and Carlise with those super teams. Making 2(1 a bubble asterisk) and losing(nuggets heavily favored) and celebrating just making it is the lebron formula for goat talk. Spo wants the championships Pop has. Believe that.
Iunno, 2 finals with that roster is pretty crazy given the talent. At some point it's not random events anymore especially in a 7 game series.
