Entering Year 5, what should we make of Joe Mazzulla?
I am a fan of his perplexing coaching mentality and seemingly deep relationship with players but seriously question his strict approach to sticking with the game plan rather than adapting when it isn’t working out (e.g., Brooklyn Nets high PnR with MPJ going hyper efficient top of key 3 over and over). I honestly think this squad in the coming year is the epitome of what they want from an analytical standpoint with maximizing the 3pt shot through Tatum’s playmaking (e.g., no more “taking turns” with him and JB), team forcing turnovers (e.g., addition of PG to jump passing lanes), and team offensive rebounding (e.g., addition of Mitch). Very excited for this season and you should be, too.
They’re going all in on possession-maxing with Mitch and PG.
Agreed, which is all the more indication that he will stick with the game plan. When your team has a decent shooting percentage from 3, it’s got the highest EV of any shot outside of free throws. You increase possessions (through defensive rebounding and fast pace of play) you drastically reduce the amount that variance can fuck you over. I don’t think PG is part of the master plan, and we certainly won’t resign him anywhere near a max, but he conveniently adds nicely into that strategy.
When your team has a decent shooting percentage from 3, it’s got the highest EV of any shot
…in the regular season. I happen to be someone who also cares about the playoffs
I think this is right, but I just don’t think that can work deep in the playoffs-the other teams are too good.
That he’s a champion. And he knows how to win. Last year already proved he can win games with injured rosters. It would be a mistake to let him go because of one first round exit.
I swear, Reddit nephews would have canned Red goddamn Auerbach if they controlled things.
For visibility:
Mazulla has .632 winning% in the playoffs. Compare that to:
Erik Spoelstra (.570)
Gregg Popovich (.599)
Pat Riley (.606)
Red Auerbach (.589)
Mazulla is actually 8th all time in Playoff winning %. In addition, If you eliminate coaches that have coached <*48 playoff games, Mazulla is 5th all time. Behind :
Mark Daignault (.688)
Phil Jackson (.688)
Steve Kerr (.684)
John Kundla (.632)
*48 games because that both eliminated coaches with a smaller sample sizes & will also never coach another NBA game: David Blatt, Paul Westhead, and Butch van Breda Kolff, while keeping Mark Daignault who will almost certainly be coaching in the playoffs again.
Reddit would’ve canned Phil Jackson after MJ’s first retirement, lol.
Comparing Mazzulla to Red is such an insult to the great Red Auerbach.
Your reading comprehension is shit, nephew.
Nah he ain’t wrong. Red isn’t getting you bounced by the Knicks when we were at full strength/borderline superteean followed by a lowly sixers team. That’s weak.
This guy is not red fucking Auerbach GTFO
Please learn to read instead of reacting to your three-cued feelings.
But Felger and Mazz told me he sucks! Are you trying to say something crazy like they’re loud mouth jerks that don’t know what they’re talking about and should be ignored?
Man, I sometimes wonder if Felger and Mazz are actually Boston fans. These dudes would be hating on the Celtics even if we won the next 50 titles in a row
Those morons constantly cried about the Patriots even when they were in the superbowl every other year. They’re insufferable dipshits.
I don’t think they are, atleast for football i know one of em is a packers fan
They were trolls before trolls were a thing. They are there to inspire a que on the phone lines.
Both of those jerks agreed that Pritch was one dimensional and would never amount to more than a role playing shooter.
Felger is from Wisconsin. He’s a Packers fan, and famously hates the Celtics because they beat the brakes off his Bucks throughout the 80s when he was a kid watching the games.
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I’d be 10x more mad letting Joe go vs the JB trade
Facts are facts. He won us a championship. But he also lost 3 series as the heavy favorites in horrific fashion. 2023 was against an 8 seed. 2025 blowing back to back 20 point leads. 2026 was while we were up 3-1.
If we underperform in the playoffs again this season it’s time to admit Mazzulla ball is not going to work in the playoffs. The style itself is heavily reliant on shooting variance that allows less talented teams to beat us.
I agree with your first paragraph, but not the second, we don’t have the roster for playoff success.
Also the Knicks series objectively looks less bad knowing what they just did. The Knicks do that to everyone.
The Knicks series still looked bad. We can agree with points from the “doomers” and “green” teamers
Pros
Joe is a Phenomenal Regular season coach as pointed out by last year.
Joe has a championship and that was a extremely fun year.
Cons
He’s lost series that were extremely winnable, while being outcoached. Almost even lost to the Sixers with Harden and Embiid if not for Tatum.
2024 also featured one of the greatest rosters (imo) and fit like a glove for his style and with the new NBA CBA it’s hard to replicate.
We’re judged for how we perform in the playoffs ultimately, we need to find ways to win tough games and not lose winnable games. Joe has to show IN THE PLAYOFFS that he can do that with a more limited roster
Joe has to show IN THE PLAYOFFS that he can do that with a more limited roster
I guess I don’t expect that much given said limited roster in terms of shot creation and ISO scoring in the playoffs, as well as our lack of true on-ball defenders.
I also feel like the Knicks series is the least blame that he can take as compared to the Heat series and the Sixers series, we weren’t the team that we were on paper with the injuries and fatigue from the prior season. Jaylen dealt with a meniscus injury post All-Star break that he played through and not well, Porzingis had whatever he had that clearly made him unplayable, and Jrue and Al felt their age after a 100 game season the prior year (as well as Jrue playing the Olympics). So yes, the Knicks beat us in 25 but it wasn’t really the same team as 24 when everything went in our favor.
This doesn’t make a argument for why mazzulla is different than other coaches is the problem here
He’s definitively better than like 95% of coaches in the regular season, which is extremely impressive for his age and experience level as a coach.
Even the most optimistic fan never thought we’d win 56 games last year.
Did we not have the roster for playoff success in 24-25?
that roster fucking broke. don’t be disingenous
Even before talking about Tatum’s Achilles, Brown was playing through a meniscus injury, Porzingis had a mystery illness that tanked his game, and Holiday was dealing with hamstring issues.
Hahaha no
The Knicks just came back from 22 points in 7.5 minutes in Game 1 of the ECF and came back from 29 points down in a half in Game 4 of the Finals.
Both of those losses are worse than what we did against the Knicks.
If the Knicks do this so many times, then it’s not reflective on us, and proof that they’re just good at comebacks.
Blowing back to back home 20 point leads is not excusable. Ever. Loser mentality.
Facts are facts, but there are a lot of facts you chose to exclude:
Joe is 1st all-time in regular season win%
He is 8th all-time in playoff win%
In 2023, he was the interim coach using someone else’s’ system with no time to put his own things in. Then most of his staff left before/during the playoffs and he was working with a skeleton crew
In 2025, Jrue strained his hamstring, Brown tore his meniscus, KP couldn’t breath, and after all that Tatum tore his Achilles
In 2026, we got rid of half our roster, were slated for a gap year, and blew away all regular season expectations.
Brad and Udoka also coached some stacked rosters and couldn’t do what Joe did in his first full year as head coach
He absolutely has had some big blunders in the playoffs. It started with playing KP way too much vs the Knicks and then he had repeat issues of sticking to his guns too long vs the 6ers
I think we likely win two out of three of those series with a healthy Tatum. Then we also had half our main rotation players battling injuries in the other series (against the Knicks in 2025).
I get that there were bad signs in the series that we lost even before the Tatum injuries, like going down 0-3 against Miami or letting Philly tie up the series at 3-3 this past season. But I don’t think anyone would care that much about those if Tatum hadn’t gotten injured and we still come away winning the series
Yep. Anyone who disagrees with this being the make or break year for Joe is wearing tinted glasses or something. Doc Rivers also won a championship is not a well regarded coach, in fact something like 3 of the past 6 coaches who won an NBA championship are no longer even in the league!
So let’s see how it plays out. They take the defending champs to 7 games in the EFC? Okay, that’s not so bad. They get the 3 seed and lose to the 6 in round 1? Time to go.
I’m already there. I like the quirk, but it’s old now and tired of the dipshit things he’s done in the playoffs losses. tbf to me, I could’ve coached the ‘24 team to a championship. Joe has not impressed me with huge flameouts in the playoffs the other 3 years. I’ll be interested in the Celtics when he’s gone. I know how it goes
Yep. The quirk was funny with Belichick who had all the hardware, AND you could tell while watching the games “oh this guy is leagues ahead of his opponent.” Joe has neither of those to back him up acting that way.
He didn’t win us a a ship. The loaded roster did. Anyone could’ve coached that team to a ring .
Pretty much every championship team has a loaded roster.
I’ve known Mazzulla can’t coach the entire time. Any time he goes up against a real coach without a superteam to bail him out, he’s exposed.
He can’t win when it matters except for all the times he did, but then there were other reasons. Basically I’m saying we need to put Joe Mazzulla alone in a box at the bottom of the ocean. If he wins an NBA championship, ok. Otherwise fire him. If the playoff competition isn’t really super hard though, consider firing him anyway just to be safe
Yeah but how would he do against Johah Hill?
They won in spite of him, not because of him. If he was a halfway decent coach, they would’ve won more than once.
You are correct
They lost the same way two years in a row. I like him but I’m fine if we lose him.
Ty Lue coached a team to a chip.
Ty Lue is a good coach lol
Ty lue is a fine coach, but he is not giving you what Joe mazulla does.
He’s a coach half the teams would snap up in a second if he became available.
Is he a top-tier coach? Well, he certainly has the wind percentage résumé but the eye test tells a different story.
He could be like a coach Spo eventually, and I think the Celtics are comfortable with him because he works within their system.
You have to think that you could get a more talented coach, but they might have their own style of picking players that contrasts with the front office.
I hope Joe can grow as a ATO coach this year and work on his deficiencies as an Xs and Os coach
More than half.
Imo he’s at worst the 2nd best floor raiser in the league right now (behind Spo), in terms of getting the most out of mediocre players and maximizing regular season wins.
He has some playoff mistakes and there are probably around 5 guys you can argue over him there, but he’s been enough to win a championship and not many people can say that.
Most importantly he’s super young and still growing. Not a guy you let walk out the door.
Yeah I feel like I know exactly what to make of him. Pretty easily a top 3 regular season coach, elite floor raiser / motivator / win getter, with some legitimate questions about his ability in the playoffs.
Although he has proven he can get it done in the playoffs which is more than most coaches can say. 2024 playoffs was pretty much flawless even if he had the best team. Gameplan against Dallas was perfect.
Exactly. Motivating a team is a big part of coaching. He’s already Spo level at that. So is bringing along rookies.
This is the right take. Great season-long tactician, great motivator of players, and I think he and his staff do a good job with player development. Needs to grow as a game manager and needs to adapt to the changes in how playoffs are played (and called). A high variance, high-EV play style might not be the way in the playoffs, especially against lesser opponents.
Blowing back to back 20 point second half leads on your home court and then blowing a 3-1 first round series lead to a 7 seed the following year are usually fire-able level failures, but what do I know.
No team in the history of the league has had to blow up their roster the last 2 years like we have. It cant be overstated how crippling the second apron has been for the Celtics.
In other words, to answer the question the above guy asked, he knows very little.
He’s a top tier coach.
He’s played around some pretty flawed rosters to create perennial contenders.
Even 2022, he was apparently the mastermind behind our defense.
COY but the stans here think they know ball better than Joe. It boggles the mind.
Right? Joey 3Ballz is infallible and infatigable!
Of course not but he knows more than anyone posting here.
I understand this is a results business, but I think coaches get too much credit for winning and too much blame for losing. Its a player-driven league
Normally I agree but I think this past regular season is an exception where I really would give Mazzulla a lot of credit for getting us the two seed even before Tatum came back. I know some people will say Brown carried that roster, but the advance stats don’t agree. Some of the credit also goes to the young guys contributing more than expected, but then I think you also have to credit Joe for helping those guys develop and build confidence
Yes sorry I should have clarified the emphasis on post season results. Joe def gets credit for regular season last year. And coaching staffs/organizations get credit for developing players.
Whatever keeps Brad in the front office is what I’m on board with.
Joe is fine, not without faults but the players respect him and he’s done a great job getting the young guys to earn and deserve minutes.
Can’t think of anybody I’d trip over myself to swap him out for
Coach of the year.
He’s a championship coach who has overachieved in most seasons. Including last one.
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Top 5
Top 5 coach in the league
He’s one of the best coaches in the league. The Celtics development has been ahead of other teams and other teams have tried to emulate the way the peak Mazzulla teams have played. He gets hurt by his own stubbornness at times in the playoffs
I like Joe. I’m tired of living and dying by the three. Analytics can be helpful but the over reliance on them gets in the way sometimes.
Honest opinion is that he’s been carried by a good roster and has failed in horrific fashion more than he’s succeeded. When I go down the list of what lead us to the championship he is way down the list. Brown, Tatum, Stevens, Jrue, White, KP, Pritchard, then I guess Joe.
That roster was too good to not win, he/they were never challenged. Everything they face a real challenge they fail. 2023, 2025, and 2026 were all objective failures. You were the better team.
Let’s see…he’s reigning coach of the year for somehow getting last years roster to 56 wins plus he’s an NBA champion. The number of NBA teams that would love to be able to say this about their coach…and yet a majority of Celtics fans want him fired lol
Some “great coaches” spend their entire careers trying to just make it to the conference finals and never do; let alone a ring.
Dude is solidified
We spend too much time online. This is a dumb conversation. He’s great. 29 coaches lose in the playoffs or before each year. He’s great.
Falls short when it matters most. A letdown.
Joe insists on learning the hard way because he mistakes rigidity and dogma with conviction and integrity. This is where he tells on himself a bit and undermines the idea he is mature beyond his years, which is something he clearly likes to think.
Remember year one when he refused to call timeouts and insisted even after that season ended in embarrassing fashion that it was a good thing? Go back and watch the podcast he did with JJ after the ECF. He didn’t learn a thing from how that series ended, or at the very least wasn’t willing to publicly acknowledge that he learned anything.
He is reluctant to change his approach because he considers it a sign of weakness. This is both naive and foolish. This is how you become the first coach in Celtics history to blow a 3-1 lead.
His inability to adjust is not only a persistent flaw, it is well known and used against him by opponents. The fact that he hasn’t developed an effective counter to this is a sign he doesn’t think he needs to because he’s shown he’s capable of doing so when he wants to.
This season will be a test to see if he has actually learned enough from these past few years to understand the difference between wisdom and knowledge.
Yea, the schtick is old
Best regular season coach in the league and a top tier playoff coach
Top 3 coach
He’s possibly the best coach in the league, what is there to argue about lol
Our main problem was Jaylen’s offense falling off a cliff in the playoffs and he’s gone now. Joe’s offense works great and you can see that in the Jaylen on/off splits in the playoffs and we’ve been a premier defense every year despite being terrible at forcing turnovers. And Brad massively overhauled our personnel to help with that.
As long as him and Tatum never clash, I hope we keep him for his entire career.
He’s so young as a coach, and could be here for another 30 years if things go right.
My biggest question mark is his playoff rotations compared to the regular season. I think the biggest reasons we lost the last two years are him playing a clearly not well Porzingis big minutes, and not playing the deep rotation that got us the 2 seed last year.
He went with the weird Game 7 lineup but it was too late. However Brad is clearly trying to build a “Mazzulla” team, so in excited to see how this year goes and I dream of at least the ECF again.
I miss when it was basically inevitable that the Celtics would be one of the final four teams
Holy shit 30 years of this asshole. Let’s home the experiment ends this year with another record 3 point attempt and make regular season and a first round collapse.
Maybe basketball isn’t for you.
Ok. Find me after round 1. But I’m sure it won’t be Joe’s fault, you will come up with a different reason.
Never said it wasn’t, but the moment someone says “all they do is jack up 3 pointers” I know that you both 1) don’t watch the games and 2) don’t understand basketball. You sound like those braindead morons on 98.5.
He’s been blessed with a top-5 talent team for his whole career, and arguably top-2 every year except last year.
He’s achieved. I don’t think he’s overachieved and I don’t think he’s underachieved. I think his flaws (overly reliant on a single game plan and keeps his adjustments within that plan) are things that will improve as he matures and that makes him worth keeping around, but if it’s ever a choice between him and Brad I’m keeping Brad every time.
Great regular season coach who gets worse in the playoffs. His personality quirks are talked up way too much by a segment of the media and fanbase.
he has admirable character, he gets a lot out of players, represents Boston well… but also Mazzulla Ball is a high variance style that causes Celtics losing in upsets in the playoffs
Good coach. Too stubborn.
goated
I think Joe is a really good coach. He started his head coaching career under pretty much the most durress you can imagine, and he’s a obviously championship winner. He’s an incredible motivator and clearly has a unique ability to get a whole team to buy in 1 - 15.
He also has a pretty limited range of adjustments he’s willing or able to make over the course of a series, which explains the rough playoffs exits 3⁄4 years. Personally i can’t help to wonder about how far your coach can take the team when there’s only so many adjustments he can make. Still love Joe, but i think thats the biggest potential criticism against him
Decent regular season coach , but has no talent for playoffs where you have to think on your feet. Only won once with a stacked super team and lost multiple times as favorites.
We’re incredibly lucky to have him and Stevens.
Elite HC who was cursed with a high ego, 0 impact second “star”.
Cannot blame him for a second for any of his playoff losses and not a GM on earth would disagree seeing what their response was to that guy being traded.
We should make that he’s a champion with more to learn. Pretty good spot to be in.
Is Mazzulla going down the same road as Doc Rivers? Only one 3-1 series blown versus 3 but they had no right being down 3-0 to the Heat and losing in 6 to the Knicks despite being up 20+ in back to back games. They both have 1 championship when basically both were handed super-teams. I honestly think Joe is a good coach. Regular season it is easier to win on effort. He does get the most out of everyone. I think once the playoffs roll around and everyone else meets that effort level he hasn’t figured that out yet. Everything should be aligned for him this year. Tatum and him are tight. Any divisive voices are gone. I can tell you this, with Tatum back and PG here we are gonna see ALOT of 3’s. Probably the most ever.
Won a championship and never won less than 56 games in 4 seasons. At the very least, he’s a good regular season coach that ensures us a high seed and HCA every year because he gets production 1-15. In the playoffs people have their complaints, but I believe the shortcomings are execution issues, which some of it falls on the coach and some of it falls on the players.
Mazzulla is fine, and unless there’s locker room dysfunction, he’s here to stay. The higher ups and the players respect him, and those are the important people making decisions. I believe Mazzulla can win the Celtics another championship if he has the right personnel, and that’s enough of a reason for me to like the Celtics keeping him around.
Look at JM fans comparing him to Red, and P. Jackson - are you stoned? Except for one year full of all stars, this teamed has shit their pants in the playoffs.
Say it louder to his cult fan base
I may be in the minority but I think Joe has shown growth each year. The first year he was thrust into a nearly impossible situation and was obviously not prepared but made the best of it. The second season he had a stacked roster and was smart enough to basically let that talent do their job without interfering. The 3rd season injuries to KP then later losing JT derailed any hopes of winning again but he was also exposed in the playoffs. Last season he took a team that had lost several major pieces and got everyone on the team to believe in themselves and each other. Joe developed the young guys and turned them into viable weapons. Unfortunately, when they faced Philly in the playoffs all of our shooters slumped at the same time which you can’t hold him accountable for. Joe believed in these guys and stuck with them until it was too late then overreacted. This was a major mistake and one I put solely on Joe.
I think this season is the one where we will really be able to see Joe’s potential. Once again we’re going into the season without a major piece (JB) but we have JT coming back, we’ve added PG, Robinson, and Conley. I actually believe this team will be much better than last season’s team but also will require Joe to make major adjustments. We still have shooters but can’t rely on just jacking up more three’s than the other team. I’m really looking forward to seeing how Joe utilizes the talent we have now. I’m betting we see a more free flowing offense with more ball movement, cuts to the basket, etc and fewer forced threes.
Good coach,. Totally jacked.
That he has earned the right to continue to learn and improve, and I hope he does.
Joe is a players coach, a motivator and he’s good at it. Joe is NOT a strategist. He’ll never draw up the winning play in a close game. Unfortunately, I believe the difference in winning and losing is often the coach’s ability to do just that. Good coaches find a way for their team to win when that may not be quite as good as the opposition. They had a great path to win a title. Since then we’ve seen Joe at best - which is not very good.
He’s a champion and a great coach. End of discussion
Not as good as the fan base thinks he is.
He’s all of those things. And still a work in progress. Starting Ron Harper Jr in Game 7 was the type of galaxy brain mistake that a more experienced coach would never make. He’ll learn
He’s a great regular season coach that knows how to stack wins because he can maximise the role guys and get his players to play hard every night.
In the playoffs he’s been badly exposed over the last couple seasons. That Knicks series was on him, you can’t blow two 20 point leads in the 4th in back to back games and not have it fall on the coach. You have to work something out to stop the bleeding. We’ll see where he goes from here, I wouldn’t fire him but I think the jury’s out.
I also forgot to mention the Miami series the year before we won the title, to go down 3-0 to that 8 seed Heat team in the first place was borderline unforgivable and maybe cost us another title, bounced back the next year but that’s still 3⁄4 seasons under Joe with a pretty bad playoff loss.
That one I’m more willing to forgive because he was put into a difficult situation where wasn’t expecting to become HC and had to learn on the fly with a coaching staff belonging to the guy they just fired. The last two have been more difficult to defend
Adding insult to injury, he also lost Damon Stoudamire to Georgia Tech right before the playoffs that year.
It wouldn’t have been fair to expect Stoudamire to stick around, but the timing couldn’t have been worse for the Celtics.
Someone stupid enough to make a decision like that is not capable of learning.
It’s just so funny because everyone was demanding a change. Light a fire under the starters ass, bench them if they don’t wanna play hard, etc etc. And then he does, it goes poorly, and he adjusts within 5 minutes…and suddenly he’s a dumb fuck that needs to be fired. Sure, RHJ starting was a pretty dramatic and relatively dumb choice. But at the same time, we had just lost a 3-1 lead. It was pretty clear the decision was made to light a fire under the starters asses
Damned if you do damned if you don’t. This sub would’ve pissed in the offseason if Mazzulla didn’t make any significant adjustments for game 7
That doesn’t mean play a lineup that has literally zero mintues played together. Also the team played 50 games without JT last year so this idea that he didn’t know what to do or lineup to run is quite ridiculous as he had most of the regular season to figure out this exact situation.
Truly let’s talk about it bc what has mazzulla done to earn this many devoted supporters in the city? Just for one title? Y’all can’t be excusing major blunders like this bc of one title ( the title being the easiest felid of opponents by far for any champion since 2000)
I think fans just genuinely can’t understand coaching to a significant extent. Myself included. They don’t see what goes on behind the scenes, nor what exactly is being said in timeouts or what adjustments a coach has made unless its blatantly obvious like a sub or extreme playstyle adjustment - and even then, most casual fans aren’t going to notice. That said, Joe has received nothing but vehement support from the FO and his players. Vets like Blake have said it’s the best locker room hes ever been in, young guys like Walsh have clearly bought in, and the FO including Brad has done nothing but sing his praises. Is he an amazing coach? Who really knows, I guess only time will tell as he builds his legacy in Boston. But I do think he deserves praise for his work so far. This roster really should not have been a 50+ win team last year. Obviously credit to the players to, but I think the fact Joe got every guy to buy in deserves recognition
This from the guy that thought the onion article about Mazulla was real.
Joe Mazzulla himself said that him blowing a 3-1 lead was unacceptable and that fans are right to criticize him yet people here are still defending him and making excuses for him lol.
Eh. Tatum likes him so that’s why he stays. I honestly don’t like him and think letting his team lose when being up 3-1 to that awful 6ers team is unforgivable
He’ll make the best of the bad situation he’s in. There are reasons no one has won with Paul George.
He’s our Mike Budenholzer. He has a system that’s easily countered in the playoffs, but he will never diverge from his system regardless.
You mean 2026 NBA coach of the year Joe Mazzulla? Wtf are you even talking about man?