With Jayson Tatum on the mend and Celtics no longer the favorite, it's time for Joe Mazzulla to show he can adapt stylistically

Boston Globe

3 days ago

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When Mazzulla, Rhode Island basketball royalty, took over as interim coach in 2022 after Ime Udoka's indiscretion with a Celtics team employee, he inherited a club that advanced to the NBA Finals. The next season, Mazzulla worked with an abundance of riches after Stevens pilfered Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis in Auerbachian trades; Mazzulla brought home Banner No. 18. Last year, the Celtics ran it back with a nearly identical stacked roster, but were undone by injuries to their core players and an overreliance on the 3-point shot.
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The negative is this reconfigured version of the Celtics isn't suited to play Mazzulla's three-for-all style. When it comes to math, Mazzulla is a true believer. He famously told us that
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However, the wrecking ball brought to the Celtics roster by the punitive NBA collective bargaining agreement and the dreaded second apron — along with Tatum's Achilles' injury — stripped the team of the ability to play that way unabashedly. Holiday and Porzingis were traded. The
As Jayson Tatum works his way back from an Achilles' injury, Joe Mazzulla will need to show he can change the way the team plays.
Danielle Parhizkaran/Globe Staff
But even if Mazzulla wasn't handed a less talented team there needed to be a philosophical shift from Total Mazzulla Math after witnessing the Celtics shoot themselves in the sneakers in the Eastern Conference semifinals against the Knicks. A series the Celtics lost in six games to a lesser team.
The Celtics lost the first two games at home, blowing 20-point second-half leads as Causeway Street experienced a level of clanging unseen since the days of the elevated Green Line.
Joe of Arc never wavered in his approach as those games slipped away.
In Game 1, the Celtics set an NBA record with 45 missed threes. In the third quarter, 19 of their 20 shots were triples. The Celtics followed that with a 10-40 3-point wipeout in Game 2. They shot lights out in Game 3, but they lost both Tatum and Game 4 and were cooked.
In the third quarter of Game 1 of the Eastern Conference semifinals against the Knicks, 19 of the Celtics' 20 field goal attempts were from beyond the 3-point line.
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Mazzulla displayed some shrewd tactics like repeatedly fouling Knicks center Mitchell Robinson away from the ball to get him off the court. However, he was ultimately outmaneuvered by Tom Thibodeau, who was fired by the Knicks.
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The best coaches mold their system to their talent, not the other way around. They maximize strengths and minimize weaknesses. Mazzulla must be first willing and then able to adapt to the team he has now, not the ones he coached in the past to great success. Mazzulla sports a 182-64 regular-season mark (.740 winning percentage) and is 33-17 (.660) in the playoffs as Celtics coach.
He can't be an intractable ideologue. There's a fine line between conviction and obstinance. The incredibly competitive Mazzulla is the Marcus Smart of coaches; his stubbornness is both his greatest strength and weakness.
For example, the team doubled down on the three after winning the title in 2024, when Mazzulla became the youngest head coach to win the NBA Finals since Bill Russell as a 35-year-old player-coach in 1969.
The Celtics set the NBA record last season for most 3-pointers made and attempted in a season with 1,457 on 3,955 attempts. The live-three-or-die Green led the NBA during the regular season in percentage of points generated from the 3-pointers at 45.8 percent. That was 5.2 percentage points greater than the next team, the Warriors. It was also 4.8 percentage points higher than Boston's mark in 2023-24 (41 percent).
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An astonishing 53.6 percent of Boston's shots were from 3-point range, the only team above 50 percent. That number was 47.1 percent the year before.
But just as players add different elements to their games each offseason and grow and augment their skill sets, a young coach must do the same. Mazzulla, 37, has an opportunity with this year's team to show he's more than a hardcore motivator and competitor, fan of the lessons of the food chain in the animal kingdom, and 3-point zealot.
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'I'm excited to see what this team has. I know Joe is excited,' Stevens said. 'They're trying a bunch of stuff out there with our Summer League team that we haven't done in the past that I think will be really, really good experimentation at the very least.
'But that's kind of what we [want], to make sure we're ready to maximize this group.'
An excellent tactician during his days on the Celtics bench, Stevens made it clear that he would leave adjustments in the team's playing style up to Mazzulla.
'He's always trying to learn and grow,' said Stevens. 'So, I believe wholeheartedly in him and our staff and figuring out how best to maximize our team. That will be up to them.'
Challenges are also opportunities, opportunities for growth. Mazzulla is fond of saying that it's good to be uncomfortable.
Well, it's time for him to get a little uncomfortable and diversify his philosophy beyond the math doing the work and working out in the end.
The best math for a coach is adding to his team's chances of success.
Christopher L. Gasper is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at