Rise of Mazzullaball: How Celtics coach’s philosophy has his team on verge of title

DALLAS – When Joe Mazzulla was suddenly thrust into the Boston Celtics coaching job, he wanted to bring a new perspective. His influences ranged from soccer to UFC to killer whales. Little about the way he conducts his job is conventional, which took some getting used to.

But even as many of the questions surrounding his ability to coach this team started to dissipate, one question remained: Do the Celtics take too many 3-pointers?

“We got asked that question a lot because it was new,” Mazzulla said after the Celtics beat the Dallas Mavericks 106-99 in Game 3 of the NBA Finals. “Anytime you’re developing a new philosophy or a new style, it just takes time for understanding and execution.”

Even his players would question it at times, conceding in moments of frustration that their embrace of perimeter shooting was taking away from their aggression. But as time went on, the philosophy started to take hold because Mazzulla let them in on the plan.

Coaches often simplify their messaging to players to make it digestible and memorable. They don’t want to overload players to the point they can’t remember the important details in the heat of the moment.

But Mazzulla didn’t hold back. He built the whole operation on the players being able to process a lot of information and calculate the optimal approach in any scenario at any time. He trusted them to handle the minutiae that goes into building a system and preparing a game plan.

“Sometimes it’s like you’ve got the coaches, they game plan, but they don’t always let you know exactly what they are thinking,” Jaylen Brown said. “Like, they tell us everything. Super transparent and we trusted it.”

The Celtics built an approach based on reading every type of coverage and matchup and having a specific plan of attack. If the Mavericks are switching, Boston has all sorts of ways to attack a small in the post or a big on the perimeter. It’s allowed them to continuously create clean looks at 3s while their opponent keeps trying to score with tough shots in the paint.

“The coaching staff has been fantastic all season long,” Brown said. “It’s been just super organized. We’ve walked through all different types of scenarios. We’ve been, like, overly prepared and making sure that we know (what to do).”

Months of preparation ensured the Celtics were ready for the roller coaster that was Game 3. Kyrie Irving and Luka Doncic came out blazing, holding onto a lead heading into halftime.

But as the Mavs stars kept attacking to score in the paint, the Celtics kept launching from deep. Even though both teams were hovering around 40% shooting, the Celtics had more than double Dallas’ attempts from downtown by the time they raced out to a 21-point lead. Dallas started to focus on 3s and was able to make a comeback, but then Derrick White hit a crucial 3 after Doncic fouled out in crunchtime and the Celtics never looked back.

This was the great Mazzullaball game. It was built on trust of the staff, with each other, and in a philosophy that has guided this team to the precipice of a championship.

“The guys understand the game. They understand why we do what we do,” Mazzulla said. “And they work to execute it as best as they can.”

That trust has been reciprocated and it was exemplified in the Celtics’ roller-coaster Game 3 win, putting them one victory from raising championship banner No. 18.

“I think Joe is a basketball genius,” White said. “So whatever he says, I’m going to try to just do it to my highest capabilities.”

White’s trust in Mazzulla’s approach revolutionized his career. He was a reticent shooter when he arrived in Boston but was encouraged by his coaches and teammates to launch every time the right shot appeared.

“Derrick has a green light to shoot the shots because his skill set is taking the shots that make sense,” Mazzulla said. “He can get into the paint and shoot the two-foot floater off there, he can shoot off the dribble 3s and he can shoot catch-and-shoot 3s. I love the fact that he continues to play. His confidence never wavers based on the shots he takes and you can always count on him to make the big ones.”

Part of the plan to win the math game is to put their defenders in the eye of the storm. While the Celtics are targeting Doncic on offense so they can create two-on-one advantages that open up 3s, the Mavs star was hunting the likes of Sam Hauser and Payton Pritchard so he could score in isolation.

The key difference was that Doncic could often get those players in the paint – where he would take the shot – so the math eventually worked out in Boston’s favor when it kept shooting 3s on the other end.

“That’s the plan,” Pritchard told the Athletic. “Just make it tough 2s. They’re going to hit shots, obviously. But if they hit 2s over and over again and we rely on our offense, it’ll carry us the other way quickly.”

The Celtics started playing Hauser more last season because teams broke out of their offense so much to go at him and he held up enough that the data validated the approach. That paid off again in Game 3, as Hauser would make up for some of the baskets he would give up in the paint by going 3 of 4 from deep.

“I just have to take that one on the chin and just bite the bullet,” Hauser told the Athletic. “It’s one of those things where it’s a little uncomfortable at times, but it’s for the betterment of the team. It’s tough in the moment to deal with that, but you know that we’re taking away everything else. You know if they’re going to rely on that, we’re going to have a better chance to win.”

In the end, the Celtics had 11 more assists than Dallas and nearly double the number of 3-pointers. Especially as Doncic lost rhythm in the second half and eventually fouled out, Dallas’ offense fell flat until P.J. Washington started to hit 3s. But throughout the game, it was on Dallas’ two top players to create everything.

“They know how much of our offense over the playoff run has been predicated on getting easy looks for our bigs,” Kyrie Irving said. “They’ve been taking it away, putting guards on the bigs, not helping off of them. A lot of one-on-one defense.”

As they close in on a championship, Mazzulla’s Celtics have embodied the second evolution of the analytics era. The Golden State Warriors and Houston Rockets pioneered the high-volume 3-point approach nearly a decade ago, but those were to varying degrees heliocentric offenses that orbited around a pair of central stars. The Celtics have spread out the gravity of their offense and turned everyone into a playmaker.

They put together an eight-man rotation full of knockdown shooters. The starting five is full of playmakers who can operate from every part of the floor and initiate.

Mazzulla formulated the Celtics’ approach to weather even the best players in the game. Over the past week, the players have kept repeating their mantra, “Whatever it takes.” Even as they almost let the game slip away, sticking with their identity worked in the end, as it almost always has since the team learned to trust Mazzullaball.

“Sometimes when you’re in a fight, it doesn’t look good,” Jrue Holiday said. “You have ugly fights, but if you stick with it, you come out on top.”