Everyone always talks about how the NBA is a “players' league,” and that coaching can only make so much of a difference, but Joe Mazzulla and the Celtics are putting that idea to the test this season. Despite all the obvious obstacles facing Boston, they’ve done nothing but overachieve and exceed expectations all year long.
Perhaps some of that is due to folks underestimating this group, but a big part of it has to be the coaching of Mazzulla and his staff. He has rightfully received plenty of credit for winning on the margins, exploiting the possession game, and snatching every piece of low-hanging fruit available.
Shooting more threes, turning it over less, and dominating offensive rebounds has been a highly successful strategy, but there are so many little things happening within the flow of a game that it’s hard to even quantify just how much of a difference Joe is making.
Celtics have taken 2-for-1 a step further
One thing that’s starting to catch people’s eyes had Zach Lowe praising him on a recent podcast, and that’s gaming the system at the end of quarters to ensure that the Celtics always steal an extra possession.
By now, most NBA fans are familiar with a two-for-one, which means shooting with enough time left in a quarter so that the other team can only get one possession, and your team gets the ball back for the final shot; essentially ensuring two possessions to the other team’s one.
But as Lowe pointed out, Mazzulla and the Celtics are taking it a step further, going three-for-two, and sometimes even four-for-three. Zach noted how they will start slowing the game down in the final minute, sometimes dribbling for the first 15-18 seconds of the shot clock, just to make sure the math works out in their favor.
Zach Lowe picks Mazzulla as Coach of the Year
This is an absurdly calculated move that needs to be executed to perfection for it to even create the desired advantage, but that’s the standard Joe holds his players to, and it’s part of the reason the Celtics have blown past any reasonable expectation this season.
Later on the same episode, Lowe and his guest, Wosney Lambre, both selected Mazzulla as their Coach of the Year, and pointed to his expectations and how he will be quick to yank players out of the game for missing an assignment. That’s the expectation for every player on the roster, including the stars, and that kind of accountability is what makes this incredible system keep humming.
None of this stuff is foolproof, and at the end of the day, you’re going to need great players to play great in order to win it all. But at full strength, the Celtics clearly have a pretty great roster, and if they have the best coach in the league consistently increasing their odds of winning in incremental ways, there’s no reason to believe there can’t be a Duck Boat parade in June.