>Mazzulla has often allowed the Celtics to play through runs. His tendency to avoid quick timeouts has drawn substantial local attention.
>Williams said Mazzulla also has another timeout quirk.
>“He calls a timeout, and sometimes he doesn’t even say any words,” Williams said. “He just calls that timeout, we sit there and we talk to one another. We do what we need to do.”
>Williams believes the tactic shows how much Mazzulla trusts his players. Smart said Mazzulla wants the Celtics to understand what they need to do without an explanation from him. In those moments, Smart said the players will hash things out between themselves. They will go back and forth sharing ideas about how they need to respond. Then, according to Williams, Mazzulla will arrive in the huddle to ask if they talked it out.
>“And it’s like, we talked it out,” Williams said. “And he tells us to go out there and keep it moving.”
>Mazzulla’s timeout strategies don’t always work. During the loss Dec. 21 to Indiana, he waited until the Pacers went on a 16-0 run to use one. Even after the timeout, the Celtics gave up scores on six straight possessions. Smart still understands why Mazzulla uses the tactics and believes they work.
>“It’s to figure it out,” Smart said. “If you guys can figure it out before I come and tell you what’s going on, then we’re doing our job. That just shows the growth of being able to be coachable, being able to understand self-awareness. When you’re able to do it, it hits a little different from hearing it from somebody else you’re always hearing it from. When you’re hearing it from somebody that’s sitting down, that’s in the game with you, that’s bleeding with you, that’s sweating with you, it hits a little bit different. And I think that’s what makes it work and efficient. Because he allows us to be humans. He allows us to figure it out on our own before he comes and helps. And he allows us to just see the game.”
https://theathletic.com/4036568/2022/12/27/celtics-joe-mazzulla-mindset/?source=emp_shared_article
Does this put into question how much coaching actually matters in the NBA? We got an interim head coach who took over 4 days before training camp and is younger than one of his starters Al Horford and rarely uses timeouts and sometimes doesn’t say a single word in those timeouts but is 24-10. Is it a “working” coaching strategy or is it that coaching doesn’t really matter all that much because it is actually insane to me that Mazzulla’s “strategy” of not really coaching in TO’s is working
by ImeStopPlayingDennis
29 Comments
ESPN: Is Boston Celtics head coach Mazzulla a mute ?!?!???
Nash did the same thing and it was one of the main reasons why Nets fans thought he was a terrible coach lol
The Steve Nash approach
Wow celtics are sooo quirky
Eventually will bite them in the ass, especially with this team. Hoping his timeout management gets better as the season goes on.
Reminds me of how the coach from Death of Stalin is there but basically does nothing.
[“Come on! Play through! Ignore me!”] (https://youtu.be/EN-mq2RPAto)
I don’t get how people are questioning so much when they’ve been the best or 2nd best team all year.
This strategy can go both ways. Some teams handle it better than others.
There are compilations of “Oveja” Fernández from Argentina in the Olympic Games. He does the same… **but**… he stares at each one of them with a [“I’m gonna fuck you up if you keep playing lie this”](https://youtu.be/-RU4OutvhH4?t=27) face.
I eat these up every time.
I heard that one time he wrote on the clipboard, passionately, for the first 10 seconds of the timeout. They were prepared for his play when he flipped the clipboard over and it revealed “FIGURE IT OUT.” The “O” was drawn to resemble a basketball.
sometimes he calls a timeout and is just playing quizlet on his phone
Udoka used to do this too, theres clips of Ime calling a timeout and then going over to talk to his staff while Smart or someone talks.
I think coaching absolutely matters to some extent, but its more about fitting the right coaching approach to the right team.
This only works if you have productive film sessions and practices leading up to the game. If the team already knows what you’re gonna say cuz you discussed it a bunch before game time, no reason to repeat it in the TO. Call the time out, let them assess and critique their own performance relative to the game plan, then let them go fix it. Solid leadership in almost any setting.
No way this doesn’t get criticized during an eventual melt down in a game. Or a struggling stretch. Or even down in a series. This just seems like the type of fluff you say about your team when everything is good and gets scorned the second you arent
This works…until it doesn’t. The players on the team may think all is copacetic until the ish hits the fan & they need a coach to coach. People rightfully roasted Kyrie when he said he didn’t need a coach…The same will hold true for the Celtics whether or not they want to admit it.
some of y’all have never played a sport in your lives
To me it makes sense for this particular team. They are a close, battle tested and very talented group that when loses it’s usually because of lack of self awareness, for lack of a better term. They’re so talented that they can get 3pt happy for instance, instead of focusing on running a good offense and making reads. They are trying to take the final step and last finals showed they need to be better in read and react game, especially when their shot is not falling and/or the usual points of attack are closely guarded etc. To overcome that you need the entire team to be on the same page knowing what needs to happen in those tense moments. This approach will not work for every team but in my opinion it is something that this particilar Celtics team needs to improve. Also, there’s a regular season factor to it all where you get disinterested in matches because of how dominant you are. This helps with focus of the team as well. Kerr did that with Warriors in the KD era. So it all makes sense on multiple levels to me. Good, smart coaching and far from an example of how a coach role is not relevant anymore.
A bit of a departure from the Udoka “stop playing like assholes” approach
Still not sure which one I prefer tbh.
One time he called a timeout, looked me straight in my eye, then kissed me on the lips right there. By the time I felt his tongue down my throat, I knew what I had to do. So I went out there and took care of business.
I dont think the Celtics are succeeding because of Mazzula, they are just very talented and have lots of chemistry having played together so long. If the team starts to fall off I think Mazzula is gonna get turned on extremely quick
Calls a time out to delete his quizlet accounts.
Pop has done this before. When you have players who know what to do and are motivated to win, sometimes you don’t need the coach to say anything. You just need a break to collect yourselves.
Man some of ya’ll don’t understand coaching at all. If you’ve played basketball or any sport for that matter at a high level, you’ll know that what a coach does or doesn’t do definitely affects the game.
To be a good coach, it’s important to recognize who your team is. The reason why this method may have failed with Nash is because the Nets didn’t have great team leaders and a good team cohesiveness where they could hash things out in the huddle. Nash totally deserves blame for not recognizing that, but it also seems like at some point he lost the locker room and anything he said in the huddle didn’t matter much anyway. He’s one of the greatest players of all time, he’s just fine with X’s and O’s, but he clearly didn’t have the best ability in leading a locker room of strong headed NBA players.
It works for the Celtics because they have great team chemistry and they trust each other. They also have great veteran team leaders in Smart and Horford. I’m sure Brown and Tatum are capable leaders as well, so they can figure out what’s going wrong based on Mazzulla’s game plan.
Lmao I can coach the Celtics too. I got some quizlet cards prepped as well.
That was a Phil Jackson thing, too. Can’t count all the times I saw the Bulls or Lakers in a tough stretch during a game, only for the camera to cut to Phil, serenely sitting on the bench.
On a related note does anyone have the clip when Pop just stared at Parker and Duncan during a timeout? 😂
I mean it makes sense, he wouldn’t do it every single time put obviously.
But if you do it occasionally you can build trust as well as get them to actually try and think through the coach’s pov.
I’m sure it won’t work for every player but I imagine some players would love a coach like that
I mean, I played at a level nowhere near the nba and our coach would even do this often. Call timeouts and let us talk for 90% of it and then come it with a generic clap and like “let’s go” and we’d go back out. Sometimes you just have to take a to and sit there and hash some things out
Different strokes for different teams, but I personally don’t like the first one. What’s the point of letting the other team go on a long run before a timeout and then not say shit so they can go on another long run. Kind of defeats the purpose of calling the timeout.