The Boston Celtics quest for history came to a screeching halt in Game 7 against the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference Finals, as they suffered a 103-84 loss to officially get eliminated from the playoffs. It was certainly not the outcome the team was hoping for, and unsurprisingly, Joe Mazzulla‘s job security has once again become a topic of much discussion.
Mazzulla found himself in the spotlight quite frequently throughout Boston's playoff run, typically for all the wrong reasons. In a perceived coaching mismatch against Miami's Erik Spoelstra, Mazzulla was outclassed at first, but very nearly led the first 3-0 series rally in NBA history. Still, this is a series that many folks were expecting Boston to win, and the fact that they didn't won't make the Celtics or their fans happy.
Considering all the circumstances and expectations Mazzulla faced in his first season as a head coach at the NBA level, he did a decent job. But it's fair to wonder whether or not he is the coach that can lead the Celtics to their next championship. Even with the disastorous Game 7 loss in the books now, let's look at three reasons why the C's should give Mazzulla another shot to run the show next season.
3. The Celtics need continuity in their coaching staff
The tenor surrounding Mazzulla's job status has been a roller-coaster over the past few weeks. He looked to be on the ropes with the Celtics down 3-2 in their series against the Philadelphia 76ers, but they managed to rally and advance to the ECF. Things were even worse after Boston fell behind 3-0 against Miami, but again, Mazzulla somehow kept this team together and nearly led a historic comeback.
Moving on from Mazzulla may make sense in some ways, but if he were to get fired, that would mean that the Celtics would have their fourth head coach in four years. With Brad Stevens transitioning to the front office, Ime Udoka getting fired for his sexual misconduct incident, and than Mazzulla struggling to truly grip the reigns in the playoffs, that would leave a confused Celtics squad with the heads spinning even more.
Opinions on Mazzulla (mine included) have been changing rapidly, and even though Boston didn't get the result they wanted, it makes sense to give the young head coach a better chance to succeed next season. Bringing in a veteran assistant coach or two to be his right hand man would be huge, but outright replacing Mazzulla doesn't make as much sense as it did less than a week ago.
2. Joe Mazzulla nearly managed to get the Celtics to rally from a 3-0 series deficit
The reason that's true is because, well, Mazzulla nearly led his team to an achievement that no other team in the history of the NBA has ever accomplished. Heck, even with the loss, the Celtics are still just the fourth team out of 151 squads to rally back from a 3-0 deficit to tie the series at three. You can credit the players, but clearly Mazzulla did something right here too.
For the most part, the Heat's players vastly outperformed the Celtics in this series, but Mazzulla made some shrewd adjustments to allow Boston to make things interesting. The C's defense, which was much-maligned early on in this series, did a great job of keeping Jimmy Butler quiet by forcing him to hesitate on his drives and made Bam Adebayo look like a shell of himself on offense.
The only thing the Celtics didn't do was hit their shots in this series. It very nearly cost them in Game 6, and it finally caught up to them in Game 7. Mazzulla can't exactly go hit their shots for them, and while the 19-point deficit looks large, there were easily six or seven threes the Celtics should have hit in this one, which brings us to our final point…
1. The Celtics Game 7 loss cannot fall on Joe Mazzulla's shoulders
The Celtics Game 7 loss here is arguably one of the most crushing losses in the history of sports. Everything was lined up for them to not just make NBA history, but also punch their ticket to the NBA Finals. Instead, they turned in arguably their worst outing of the season, but you cannot pin much of that blame on Mazzulla.
Boston held the Heat to just 104 points in this game. On most nights, that's enough to win a game. But the Celtics could not hit their shots for the second game in a row. Could Mazzulla have dialed up the offense to attack the paint more? He could have, but it certainly didn't help that his most effective player in Jayson Tatum was basically playing on half of a leg after suffering an ankle injury on the first possession of the game.
Had the Celtics gotten swept out of this series by the Heat, things would be different. But Mazzulla didn't give up, and neither did his players. It's not the result we would have liked to have seen, but that has to mean something when it comes to deciding his future with the team. Mazzulla deserves a shot to build off of his first season with the C's, and who knows, maybe he can take them to promised land with a full offseason of preparation under his belt.
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