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[Legion Hoops] Marcus Smart on Joe Mazzulla’s offense: “Literally, the majority of the offense is random.”



[Legion Hoops] Marcus Smart on Joe Mazzulla’s offense: “Literally, the majority of the offense is random.”

by TacoooJay

30 Comments

  1. CofTheEast

    Why do all these Celtics articles come out at the worst possible time

  2. PrimordialDescent

    Confirmed we have no head coach as the offense plays randomly and team doesn’t play defense

  3. dafire123

    Lmao, this is a little disingenuous but like it’s not wrong. We either have Tatum and brown cooking their matchups. A bunch of cutting randomly. Good drive and kicks. Or just drive since basically everyone can drive. We really just kinda do it all.

  4. I mean that’s fine. We were 2nd in offensive rating in the regular season and are 1st in the playoffs. Offense isn’t the problem the defense is terrible. Literally last out of all the teams remaining in the playoffs

  5. Ok_Seaweed_9452

    Ppl with surprise pikachu face after realizing that first quarter of the season it was the player carrying Joe lol

  6. Plastic_Database_645

    Now that Embiid returns with Sixers 100% healthy, it’s time to get serious.

  7. WarWolf343

    Seeing as this is the highest scoring offense in Celtics history, it clearly has benefits.

  8. MarquisJames

    Somehow people will fucking cry about this even though we had great offensive stats this season.

  9. This is a poor word choice. It’s not that they just do ‘random’ things. If you read The Athletic article it goes into depth about what ‘randomness’ means:

    > Mazzulla said Brown and Tatum used to know exactly where their shots would come from and how they would produce those looks.

    > “But I think a part of the development of really good players is that defenses are gonna take all of that away,” said Mazzulla. “That’s actually a compliment. That’s how good you’ve gotten is they’re going to take that away. Now what? So you have to be able to manipulate the environment, you have to be able to then create one on your own.”

    > That reality led to the latest step in Boston’s evolution.

    > “Now, if you don’t have a play,” said Mazzulla, “how are they going to guard you?”

    > “It’s a lot of making plays, making reads, seeing how the other team is guarding you and playing basketball,” Brown said. “It makes you unpredictable. It makes you have to read the game every single night. It makes you a better basketball player. And at times when the game gets out of control, you’ve gotta be able to have that stability to get everything back in order.”

  10. YanksCelticsGiants

    I don’t understand why this sub loves Mazzulla. He’s a bad coach and a bad guy. This team played so much harder under Udoka and we threw away our championship team for this clown. Look at the downvotes, how do you people actually think this guy is a good coach?

  11. supersickx3

    When you have two elite scorers that’s generally okay. The offense at times looks stagnant, but it’s not a huge problem. Obviously they should be running some kind of offense tho.

    Play-calling in the clutch and making smart decisions are a different story.

  12. Offense isn’t the problem, it’s the fact that they haven’t figured out to how adjust on defense when needed… seeing Al switched on to Harden constantly in game 1 was so rough, between the Hawks series and this one so far the defense is nonexistent and if they don’t figure out they aren’t going to sniff a chip.

  13. milespeeingyourpants

    > The Celtics’ offense now relies heavily on what Mazzulla calls “randomness.” As Smart described the system, the team has “a couple plays” with all sorts of reads off those actions. Everything only works if the players operate on the same page.

    >“Literally,” Smart said, “the majority of the offense is random.”

    >The foundation began to take place last season. From the start of Udoka’s tenure, he preached the need for Tatum and Brown to improve as playmakers. They had experienced substantial success in the NBA, with multiple trips to the conference finals before Udoka took over, but the burden on them grew as their responsibilities did the same. As Brown pointed out, individual expansion only contributed so much to Boston’s eventual turnaround. He missed 14 games before the middle of December. The Celtics needed to figure out how to maximize their rotation. The addition of White at the trade deadline upgraded Udoka’s lineup options. During Udoka’s first year as a head coach, the players also needed to adjust to his principles.

    The article [by Jay King](https://theathletic.com/4468910/2023/05/03/boston-celtics-jayson-tatum-jaylen-brown-offense/) is worth a read even if Jay can’t be bothered to wear something nicer than a warmup suit to the NBA finals.

  14. Dondon1927

    Didn’t even need Smart to say this to know it lol

  15. luke_workin

    Completely missing the context of the article.

    That being said, a lot of Joe’s stuff seems random and not in a good way.

  16. doflamingo34

    the problem is the offense at end of games, best way to describe is they’re unorganized and that falls on the PG not getting their guys in the right spots

  17. shortpersonohara

    I mean a lot of basketball offense is kinda random. you have the main guys you want handling the ball, your shooters, your bigs and yky kinda just play and see how it unfolds. bigger issue is defense. 1st in offense these playoffs but last in defense

  18. Warlord10

    This was so obvious the entire season. It’s the reason that Tatum shoots a billion 3’s a game and has completely abandoned the mid-range.

    Mazzulla’s analytics surely come to the conclusion that if we shoot X amount of 3’s a game, we will almost always be hot enough to win 4 out of 7.

  19. mullethunter111

    No defined plays and no timeouts. Genius.

  20. Should we really be doing big-boy coach tryouts with this group?

    They’ve have never had the right leader. They wouldn’t have a 4-5 year track record of checking the fuck out as soon as they’re up by 10 if they did.

    Dude may be technically solid but you know the NFL coaches that are pretty good but lose their job cause they can’t manage the fucking clock / freeze in big moments? Our boy’s trending there -and- to be so pig-headed to not even hint at a piece of fault after the fact – how unlikeable. Even Belichick puts himself out front.

    Imagine wasting this window on someone incapable. They signed him yes but I sure hope they’re brave enough to take a hard evaluation of how they are handling this group if coach #3 can’t stomp this

    Ime flaunted his lack of integrity by all accounts – whether it’s common or not everyone is able to make their own decisions and he should have been let go. Exactly what management didn’t want but credit them for their convictions.

    I hate when people (me) bitch but don’t offer a solution – I wish I had one.

    But “coaching up the coach” and “seeing how things play out” just doesn’t feel right – it really doesn’t.

    These windows can close even when guys are young- contracts, injuries, in-fighting.

    I don’t take folks losing their jobs lightly at all but this can’t be the right solution.

    Then again – give me 5 starters with Brogdon’s mentality and this team utterly crushes – coach wouldn’t matter

  21. catf1sh1

    That quote seems to be taken so out of context. I hate clickbait

  22. MartinLouisTheKing

    C’s offense is pretty much all drive and kick. Lots of reading and reacting. Alot of stagger action on the wing. He does seems to trusts the players to make the right decisions a lot. At least that’s what I see from my limited view. I could be completely wrong haha

  23. Interesting-Track376

    Listening to the BS pod and then reading this kind of depresses me

  24. jsullivangolfs

    The previous post by this twitter account was offering free plays on Bovada – not sure how legitimate this quote us

  25. Stay on your lane marcus. This is how bucks won their last championship

  26. BRFCarter

    I’m not worried about our offense at all. I really don’t care if it’s random lol

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