All the Celtics Things You Missed During The Crash Out Over Jaylen Brown

This has been Brad Stevens week around the Boston Celtics after his lengthy end-of-season press conference, mostly because (a) the Jaylen Brown situation dominated the headlines even though it’s probably much ado about nothing, and (b) Stevens was clearly angry about how the team ended and he promised changes in the aftermath.

But that's not all he said. Now that the dust has settled, here are a few other things from his media availability that were important and should probably be highlighted.

Jayson Tatum missing Game 7

“You probably could see it at the end of Game 6, we thought that it would dissipate and be okay the next day. He didn't do very much on Friday, just rested and then came in on Saturday morning and tried to do a workout. I watched it, and clearly didn't feel right. It's not like a long, long-term concern, but it certainly didn't look right when he was working out, and didn't feel right. So it made sense to be smart about that. I mean, I think the obvious answer is anytime you’re coming back from an injury like he was coming from, there's a tendency to overcompensate, and there's probably a little bit of that there.”

Follow up about Tatum’s rapidly increased minutes:

"We have a sports performance group that works closely with our coaches, that works closely with the individual physical therapists, in this case Nick Sang. You build up your condition to get to where you can go and where we think would be best ideal to go. There's no like, when people say a minutes restriction of 30 minutes, if you play 30 minutes and 30 seconds, there's no science that says that extra 30 seconds is too much, right? But he did play a lot of minutes. We did try to ramp him up for more playoff load and playoff minutes toward the end of the regular season, including a couple of the games there late where we kept him in even though the games weren't necessarily close, just to get his minutes up. And that is a part of this kind of load management era that I think we have a lot of discussions about because Phil Coles and his group do a great job. A big part of that is they say you have to be ready to play those kinds of meaningful minutes in those kinds of meaningful moments. Do we think that had an impact on his knee stiffness and the injury in Game 6? Hard to tell, but you can't cross it off. So we have to look at that. I know that they will. I feel really comfortable that they worked their butts off to try to get everybody on the court. And they did an amazing job with JT and he did an amazing job all year and to be able to play a lot, if needed."

Tatum had a lot to say about his return to action, including referencing how many minutes he was playing. I’m still in shock over how well this all went and how little time it took to get him mostly up to speed, but now the Celtics have to live with a game of retrospect.

Was it smart to ramp him up as much as they did, as fast as they did? Knowing there's a risk of overcompensating with his other leg, was it the best course of action to get him up to 40 minutes, or should they have treated the left leg, in a sense, that it was also in rehab because of the workload it was going to bear?

This is certainly some Monday morning quarterbacking going on, but because things ended the way they did, we all naturally go back and revisit the process and wonder if it was the right thing to do.

Of course, they didn’t set out to make it too much for Tatum. And I’m sure Tatum was telling them he felt fine all along. If anything, this is part of the learning curve for how to ramp up after coming back from an injury like this within this timeframe.

I will also add one more thing because Kevin Garnett is on his podcast questioning why Tatum was out for Game 7.

This is why the decision was taken out of Tatum’s hands. The LAST thing the Celtics wanted was for Tatum to get hurt again and miss significant time. On the positive side, I haven't heard much actual questioning of Tatum anywhere. I personally have done a few interviews since Game 7 and I haven't been pressed on it. So I’m glad it’s not a mainstream opinion.

The Celtics did the right thing with Tatum.

Joe Mazzulla’s Job

“I know how hard that job is and I know all that goes into it and I know he and his staff are putting everything they can into it. And when I say that we struggled to get by, I think that's, again, we need to add to our team. So I think our coaching staff, like all of us, can continue to improve and get better. That said, I think they're very good. And we need to continue to provide them the resources to grow and to get better and to continue to be the best that we can be. I think, again, I don't think we can ignore, and certainly again, you can't ignore anything, the good and the bad, but there was a lot of growth this year, and I thought that there was a lot of things that we can build off of, even though the ending was disappointing.”

This is an endorsement and an admission … or more accurately a reminder.

There's a reason why the term “gap year” became popular, and part of that is the roster very few people thought would do much of anything. That group wildly overachieved, which is because of Mazzulla and his staff. Mazzulla will win Coach of the Year for that.

Also, I believe Mazzulla is yet another victim of his biggest strength being his biggest weakness. I do think he can be a little stubborn at times, which makes him slower to make a change. I do think his player-first approach defers a little too much to the stars and how the playoff rotations SHOULD look versus making a change in something — play-calling, substitutions, timeout usage — to get the team back into the proper mindset and tempo.

I think Mazzulla was one of the targets in Stevens’ message about handling prosperity. This is all part of Mazzulla’s evolution as a coach, which is already very much ahead of schedule. He deserves the Coach of the Year award, he deserves the extension he got, and he deserves a summer to figure everything else out.

He’s not perfect, but you won’t find anyone better on the market, so tread lightly if you’re one of the “fire Joe” folks.

Too many threes?

“The bad ones, yeah. Yeah, sure. For me, it's again, I look at every shot, and so for me, it's evaluating each and every shot. But yeah, if we come down and shoot a really tough, contested three when a guy's wide open at the rim, or if we have an action that we can get to, sure. Yeah. And I think anyone would say that. I think Joe would be the first to say that. And I also think that we have to do our best to generate the best possible look we can. But yeah, I think we all would love dunks. I would love dunks …

“I think that the three pointer after dunks and three throws, or layups and free throws, if it's not a contested layup by a giant and you're a little guy, is an open kickout three is a good shot. And those are the ones we would like to get. Absolutely. And there are times where even a pull up contested shot, if it's a two for one, or if it's a situation where you’ve got a guy backtracking on his heels, whatever the case may be, your person has the right amount of talent, but each shot should be evaluated for what were your other options on that possession. I think that for me, this all goes back to – and I know the threes are a big talking point – but it all goes back to being able to generate the best looks. And with more options, we can help him and help his team get the best possible looks, and it may very well be a wide open three, if that's what certainly you're able to generate because you can't get the other stuff.”

I think the three-pointer thing and the coaching are the two most overblown reactions to this playoff exit. Open looks are open looks, and that's what the goal is. The priority has always been, in order, dunks, free throws, and then three-pointers. Mazzulla’s offense has always been about creating an advantage and then taking the best shot off that advantage.

The problem with the three-pointers this season is that reliable guys were missing their open looks. And when those guys give up those shots to create for others, then you have more unreliable guys taking less open looks.

Mazzulla was asked about this after Game 7, and he said, “We're always going to play to the style of the strengths of the roster that we have and whatever that looks like. We go out and get five big men that can post, we'll post it every single time. We go out and get a bunch of guys that do whatever they do, we'll do whatever we've got to do to win.”

I think the reaction is always “get to the rim more” without the answer to how they do it. Stevens is right that there are bad threes in the mix of every game. Which people will latch onto as their evidence. But there are bad layups, and no one wants to talk about how incredibly damaging bad layups are.

Young guys development

“Yeah it was an unusual roster in that we had a lot of unproven young players that had really not contributed at a meaningful level yet in their careers and really showed themselves capable of that. Oftentimes as a coach, as a staff, it's a lot easier if some do and some don't, because then there's a clear demarcation line, but that's a good problem to have. And so I thought that that was one of the positives is that we have a lot of good young contributors and we didn't know that coming into this year. Again, I think this is why this is hard for me to reconcile three days after the playoffs. Because I'm pissed. I'd rather be playing New York tonight. We all would, but we also, as I look back, we didn't have a team that was as experienced or certainly as ready for that moment as we've had in the past. And so for me, I see there's positives in that because these are experiences that will then add up for these guys to take advantage of in the future. But when you're in the midst of it and you have a chance, you wish you could still be playing.”

It’s so interesting to hear Stevens lay out how it would have been easier if some guys didn’t pan out. I think this is kind of at the heart of the Mazzulla discourse.

The funniest things I’ve seen in my internet travels are people yelling “fire Joe” for completely different reasons. Some say the game needed more Baylor Scheierman, others say more Jordan Walsh, and others say more Hugo Gonzalez.

It turns people into Chidi Anegonye from The Good Place having his existential crisis and telling his students “Yes. And no. And you all get ‘A’s or ‘F’s. And there is no test. And you all failed it, and you all got ‘A’s. Who cares?”

It’s wild that EVERYBODY developed to a point where people felt like they should get into a meaningful game. It’s going to make this summer tougher in a way, because there's an argument to keep everyone. At the same time, it could make Stevens’ job easier because all of these guys have a higher trade value.

Nikola Vučević

“He's our only unrestricted free agent and I thought obviously getting traded here when he did, he had some moments, broke his finger, that probably set him back. This was a hard matchup for all of us, in particular. I think when I looked at it the other day, he ended up being a plus in the series, but it was back and forth with all those guys. To be honest, one of the things with Neemi was just figuring out how to keep him on the floor, because we had two games where he was off the floor in four minutes. It was good to see Neemi have his best game in Game 7 and something he could really build off of. I thought that Vooch gave us all that he had and, did what we asked, and it was a hard matchup. I have a lot of respect for Vooch as a person and as a pro.I thought he was really good in our locker room. I thought he was a really good person to have around. Certainly, a positive experience with them.”

Nothing says a guy is gone quite like the guy in charge talking about him in the past tense and bringing up another center’s name in the answer.

It’s tough because I don’t think Vučević had enough of a chance to catch on. Maybe he can come back on a minimum deal, but I’m not sure about that anymore, either.

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