Joe Mazzulla has molded the Celtics into executioners

As the Celtics gear up to attack their title (we don’t say defend around these parts), I’ve been thinking a lot about the conversation around them during last season, and after its triumphant conclusion. There’s a sort of collective cognitive dissonance of punditry when the Cs are brought up. On one hand, the Celtics walked to the title; on the other, most “experts” picked the Mavericks to win.

I’ve often thought about why this team, specifically, elicited this near universal sentiment. The obvious reason is that Boston/New England teams win a lot, and those outside of the Boston fandom would prefer to downplay those successes, but I think it’s more than that.

There’s a subtlety to the way these Celtics play that isn’t obvious with a cursory evaluation. They aren’t built on a heliocentric superstar whose numbers constantly flirt with the history books. They also aren’t the 2014 Spurs, the epitome of ball and man movement, or the Steph Curry Warriors, who combine the two into a beautiful cocktail of basketball nirvana.

When you turn on the Dallas Mavericks, it’s obvious how good Luka Doncic is and how effective their style is. I mean, just look at his stats! It is the glorification of superstardom that fans engage in played out to nearly ad absurdum on an NBA court. It’s simple to grasp. The Spurs brand of basketball, while more appealing to purists, jumps off the screen as well. The screens, the backdoor cuts, the multitude of passes.

The Celtics are none of those things. They are built in a different image, one that reflects perfectly with its coach. Joe Mazzulla didn’t turn the Celtics into the Mavericks or the Spurs; he turned them into something entirely different. Joe tossed the Celtics a hood, a large axe, and a chopping block. He turned them into executioners.

The movement-spacing contradiction

Offensively, the Celtics have mastered the modern push and pull of NBA offense. You want movement, but you also need to maintain spacing. Movement that undermines spacing can actually hurt your offense, like an ill-timed cut that brings a help defender into the paint while a teammate drives or an off-ball flex action against a switching defense that goes nowhere, eating up precious seconds of the shot clock.

The Celtics almost never have those problems. Mazzulla has drilled into them the value of spacing, and the patience required to leverage that spacing with smart movement. Let’s take a look at a very basic example here.

This is an empty side 1-4 pick and roll with Derrick White and Jayson Tatum. It’s called an empty side because there’s no shooter in the strong-side corner, instead Jrue walks his man to the opposite wing creating loads of space, theoretically. But Dallas knows what happens when you play a Tatum pick and roll straight up — you get burned. So, Daniel Gafford comes over early and blows the play up.

The team all reads this at the same time. Tatum gets inside position but holds his spacing in sort of an elevated dunker spot. Derrick swings the ball, knowing the pick and roll isn’t going anywhere. Al Horford motions to Jaylen Brown to come flying off a pin-down screen, and Jrue maintains spacing and hits the pass to JB. It’s a missed shot, but a good look and perfectly executed.

This next play is a perfect example of the team and its star player, understanding the value of spacing and how to manipulate his defender off-ball. This all begins in semi-transition and the Mavs have absolutely lost Jayson Tatum.

If JT’s lifting his hands like he’s extremely eager to answer a question in class, it doesn’t matter. The Celtics miss him and the ball swings to the corner to Jrue Holiday. Watch the whole team, including Tatum who starts under the rim, recognize Jrue’s mismatch and let him go to work on the block.

Offense doesn’t have to be complex to be effective, but the Celtics excel with the complex as well.

The Cs start this one with how they started a lot of possessions in the Finals: putting Luka Doncic in the action. The Cs run a wedge roll action with Horford and Sam Hauser, involving two guys they want to attack: Doncic and Dereck Lively. A wedge roll means Sam will flow into a pick and roll with Jaylen, which the Mavericks switch. Lively on Brown, bingo. The Mavs show hard nail help on both wings, which limits Brown’s ability to attack. So, the Cs keep it moving. They reset the spacing, Al and JB get into a pick and pop, and Jaylen gets downhill.

My favorite part of this play is the subtle adjustments Hauser and Derrick do in the nearside corner. They are occupying defenders, making help defense difficult, and creating passing lanes. By the end of the play, Kyrie is forced to lunge out at Hauser and commits the foul.

The Celtics offense isn’t marked by a flurry of rapid movement and quick passing like the prime Warriors. It’s much more subtle than that, but no less deadly. It’s like a prize fighter who’s an expert at body shots. They slowly wear down their opponent with technique, execution, and patience, until, eventually, the fight is over, and they barely have a bruise.

The never wavering defense

Their defense is similar. Mazzulla gives them the gameplan, and they ruthless execute until their opponents barely sniff 100 points. Shelling off the paint, attacking ball handlers, getting out to shooters.

Against the Mavs, the most important part of the plan was to keep Luka out of the paint. Importantly, the Cs were loath to help out of the corners. Dallas’s wings are comfortable corner shooters (although the Cs helped of PJ Washington pretty hard regardless of where he was), they are an old couch from above the break. Extremely uncomfortable. The Celtics flawlessly executed this plan.

Watch Al on this play.

The Celtics blow up the Mavs’ initial action, so Luka is scrambling a bit. Al is on Derrick Jones Jr. with JB on Luka. As Jones spaces out on the wing, Al’s head is whipping back and forth like a sugar crazed toddler bouncing around the living room. He knows what objective #1 is: keep Luka out of the paint. As Luka gets downhill, Al is waiting for him at the nail. He’s forced into a step-back 3, brick. If Joe Mazzulla could distill his basketball philosophy into a being, it would probably be some sort of weird karate master with a Rhody accent, but it would play basketball like Al Horford.

That’s not all though, you can see Derrick navigating multiple screens as Dallas tries to run a messy stack action (or maybe it’s a flex action — regardless, it’s bad, that’s what it is) under the hoop. It goes nowhere, but Derrick doesn’t follow Washington all the way to the corner. Instead, he’s right behind Al Horford, adding another layer of help against any Doncic drive.

This play is another beautiful example of how the Cs executed the plan. It’s a pick and roll with Doncic and Washington, defended by JB and Horford.

Al and Jaylen hit Doncic with a soft trap and switch, keeping Luka hemmed in and eliminating any advantage gained by the pick. The problem with a trap, even a soft one, is that it leaves Gafford open in the short roll. Now, Gafford isn’t going to hurt you too bad there, but having the ball around the foul line and nobody on him still compromises the defense. No worry, Derrick had already rotated off of his cover, PJ Washington, to set up shop and cut off the pass to Gafford.

Jaylen scampers back to Gafford and White creeps back towards Washington, but not all the way. The quick decision-making keeps Luka out of the paint with White responsible for nail help like Al was on the previous play. You’ll also notice a subtle shift up from Tatum in the strongside corner, which discourages Luka from attacking Horford left, while staying close enough to close out on the shooter. It’s picture perfect in just about every way, and Luka is again forced into a bad step-back.

The Celtics are undoubtedly talented, but talent only goes so far at the highest levels. Coaching matters, and a large part of coaching isn’t just designing the schemes, it’s making sure your players execute that scheme. The best part? Execution usually gets better with time. Players get more comfortable with each other and the scheme.

There’s a reason the Celtics are favorites to repeat, and there’s a chance they are even more dialed in this season to do so. The Celtics may not blow you away with the superficial aspects of basketball, but that doesn’t make them any less deadly. It should be no surprise a man that willingly gets strangled to improve his high-tension decision-making is really good at getting people to listen to him, but the Celtics are elite at hearing him.