This has answered the biggest question coming into the season, how will the Celtics handle the lack of big depth?
Mazulla is motivating and scheming at an elite level. He lost 4 elite front court players in the offseason and just decided to work harder and that spread through the org.
Remember the players saying this was the most intense camp yet? Remember how insane Joe was with the sub/teaching moments in the preseason?
Joe has been working his ass off to make up for this loss in roster talent and the players responded.
(We still should get a veteran big to compete in the playoffs though, doesn't even need be starter level just better than Garza/Tillman.)
9 comments
Pep Guardiola did unprecedented things with a false 9, now Joe is going to do the same with a false 5.
I think Minotte has unexpectedly proven to be a big piece to this season. His corner 3 is far better than expected, he can crash the boards for nasty putbacks, better than average rebounder, high motor defender with good movement and high athleticism. He doesn’t have to be an elite rim defender and won’t be due to his size but he has great bounce and can get the occasional block just from being athletic.
The fact that were +9 with Minotte usually playing the 5 is kind of crazy, I love his versatility and energy. I do hope Williams develops into a serviceable big though, he has the right build for what we need but does seem to get lost every once in a while. If he develops into something similar to Time Lord he could be our rim protecting big and PnR lob threat, which would open our shooters in the corners more. I’d love to see him get some minutes to develop and maybe see the floor if/when playoffs arrive. He’s raw right now for sure but I definitely see potential.
Minott Death Lineup
Did anything in particular happen to make Luka fall out of Mazzulla’s rotation? He wasn’t lighting the world on fire, but he wasn’t awful, either. He set some solid screens.
If anything, it just seemed to me that it wasn’t anything that Luka did, but rather, Joe tried the small ball lineup and liked the energy they had on the floor.
I really want to see what it looks like with Tatum at the 5
This has got to be a house of cards in a playoff series. Major props for actually fighting in the regular season though, NBA doesn’t see anywhere near enough of that
I don’t even think Garza and Tillman actually are more “vertical” than Minott and Walsh – standing reaches are pretty similar.
Early on in the season I had high hopes for Walsh’s development and was kind of worried he’d been pushed out of real rotation minutes with the way Minott was playing—instead we’ve got two agents of chaos now. The energy and rebounding from both of those guys has been invaluable. That’s not even mentioning Hugo and how special he’s looked at times. 19 year olds don’t often get assigned the toughest defensive assignment on the floor and thrive doing so. He’s gonna be really fucking good.
I loved the championship core from the last couple of seasons but there’s something really fun to watch in a bunch of young guys just playing balls to the wall and knowing their role.
It’s cool that they’ve been making it work and Minnott deserves a ton of credit, but we’re dead last in the league in defensive rebounding. We’re gonna get killed in certain matchups. I know nobody thinks this is a long-term solution to the center lack of depth, but still.