Brad Stevens explains why Celtics’ offense was bigger problem vs. Heat than defense

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Now that the Boston Celtics’ season is over, there is a storyline solidifying: After dominating defensively en route to the 2022 NBA Finals under former coach Ime Udoka, they strayed from their identity this season. First-year coach Joe Mazzulla obsessed over the offense, prioritized spacing when constructing the rotation and deemphasized two-big lineups featuring Robert Williams III and Al Horford. 

Malcom Brogdon said Monday, after Boston was blown out in Game 7 at home against the Miami Heat in the conference finals, that “offense was our calling card,” adding, “I don’t think you win championships with a better offense than you have a defense.” The Athletic’s Jay King and Jared Weiss reported Thursday that Brogdon wasn’t the only player who believed the team had tilted too far in one direction: Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown met with Mazzulla in March and advocated for Grant Williams to be on the floor. After falling down 3-0 against Miami, Mazzulla himself said that the Celtics had lost some of their defensive identity. 

To team president Brad Stevens, however, it’s not that simple. At his end-of-season press conference, he said that offense turned out to be a bigger problem than defense against the Heat, just like it was against the Golden State Warriors last season.

“I thought that we had to improve offensively to become better, to compete, and we had to be able to play defense and maintain that level and identity that we had prior to [this season] to be our very best,” Stevens said. “And on both ends we came up a little bit short. I do think that if I had to say one end that we came up more short on, in our last few games, it was probably the offensive end, with the turnovers. And we obviously didn’t shoot the ball well, and Miami shot it great.”

Stevens pointed out that, as well as finishing the regular season with the second-best offense in the league, they had the second-best defense. He said that, “from a lineup standpoint,” it was tougher to be “what we could be defensively at our most dynamic” because, after…

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Source link : https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/brad-stevens-explains-why-celtics-offense-was-bigger-problem-vs-heat-than-defense/

Author : James Herbert

Publish date : 2023-06-01 21:02:57

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