Reflecting on the Celtics’ Season
The Boston Celtics had their incredible run to the 2023 NBA Finals come to a halt on Monday night losing in Game 7 at the TD Garden to the Miami Heat 103-84. Boston was down 3-0 in the series and had strung three straight wins to force a seventh game with homecourt advantage. Unfortunately, Celtics superstar Jayson Tatum rolled his ankle very early in the game and he said after the game he was ‘a shell of himself”. Not the way the C’s wanted to end the season at home just win away from the Finals for the second straight season. Jaylen Brown didn’t have the greatest series against the Heat. He averaged under 19 pts, 6.1 rebounds, 3.4 assists, 41.8 FG percentage while shooting 16.3 percent from three-point range. Those stats should be a lot better for your second-best player on the team but that was not the case.
Talking about the beginning of the season when interim coach now head coach Joe Mazzulla had to step in. Mazzulla, 34, was the youngest head coach in the league. He was named the interim because the Celtics suspended former coach Ime Udoka for inappropriate conduct in the organization. So already the team had to face a new challenge of not having Udoka for the foreseeable future. When the season kicked off Celtics came out strong playing great basketball for a good portion of the season. They even had coach Mazzulla remove the interim tag. He (Mazzulla) even went to the All-Star Game to coach in his first season. Fast forward to the end of the season C’s ended up with the second seed and won the first two series against the Atlanta Hawks and Philadelphia 76ers and ended up losing to the Heat as I mentioned above.
Where Do the Celtics Go From Here?
A lot of questions surround this team and what the future will hold for its core players. Will Brown stay and sign the $295 million supermax contract? Or will Boston move on from one of its stars? How about the health of Sixth Man Award winner Malcolm Brogdon with a tendon tear? Will he require surgery and be out for a significant amount of time? Things might be looking very different when it comes to the coaching staff when the fall comes around. Some assistants could be joining Udoka’s staff out in Houston. But I have confidence that the core group of guys will stick together and go for another deep playoff run in 2023-24.
Joe Mazzulla Year 2 outlook
Coach Mazzulla will learn from his first experience as an NBA head coach and focus on the mistakes he made this past season. He led the Celtics to a 57-25 regular season record and ended up winning his first two playoff series despite losing to Miami in the Eastern Conference Finals. One thing Mazzulla should focus on would be calling timeouts earlier in the games and not waiting to be down by so many points and then having to play catch up. It would be good for General Manager Brad Stevens to sit down with Joe and teach him some coaching styles. Look for Boston to be one of the top three teams in the Eastern Conference next year.
Hello, my name is Ken Matias and I am a contributor writer for Belly Up Sports. You can follow me on Twitter for your latest news surrounding the sports world.
