Joe Mazzulla was right for praising the Boston Celtics after Sunday’s loss

It hasn’t been the most spectacular time to be a Boston Celtics fan over the last nine days. Since annihilating the Phoenix Suns on their home floor, the Cs have been a completely different team. Boston is just 1-4 over their last five games, including back-to-back home losses to the 13th place Orlando Magic.

In fairness to our boys in green, the Magic have been on a roll ever since Markelle Fultz came back from injury. They’ve now won their last six games and have had the league’s fifth-best defensive rating over that stretch.

Take the defensive rating with a grain of salt because the Celtics have been the NBA’s worst offense over just as many games. After literally having the highest offensive rating in league history for a long stretch, Boston has only managed a rating of 103.8 during that recent stretch.

Joe Mazzulla praises Boston Celtics despite loss to Orlando Magic

Sunday’s matchup against the Magic was yet another day where the Boston Celtics struggled to put the ball in the basket. They managed to put up a measly 92 points against Orlando in what may have been the worst loss of the season. Despite the eyesore that was Sunday’s matinee, interim head coach Joe Mazzulla had praise for his players, saying:

"“I thought we played a great game for the majority of the game.”"

Despite what the eyes of any fan who watched Sunday’s game would tell them, Mazzulla actually has a point. Boston worked pretty well as a unit on offense, according to the stats. In the loss to Orlando, they managed to create and take 34 wide open shots (which the NBA defines as the nearest defender being over six feet away).

To put that in perspective, the season-average for the NBA’s now second-best team has been just over 22 wide open shots per game. The issue was those shots just weren’t falling. The Cs only made 35.3% of their wide open looks on Sunday (12/34), compared to the season-average 44%. In addition to the 34 wide open looks, Boston took 17 open shots (which the NBA defines as the nearest defender being four to six feet away).

Jaylen Brown somewhat echoed the message of his coach during his post-game availability, explaining that his team can bounce back despite the tough shooting display.

The level of skill possessed by NBA players is so high that the main focus of an offense is to create good looks. It’s usually a given that if an NBA-level talent has an open look, it’s going to drop more times than not, which is Mazzulla’s point about his team playing well.

Sure, it’s annoying as a fan when you’re seeing the ball bounce off the rim for the 58th time, but at the end of the day, water will find its level and the Boston Celtics should start winning games again.