Bill Simmons: “I thought Mazzulla was incredible in the Regular Season… but I don’t know what they were thinking for these Playoffs… I really think Mazzulla screwed the series up and I’m always going to think that.”
They have no bigs who who guard Embid. I think he did an okay job but D White wasn’t himself and again they had no matchup for Embid at all.
They got burned on both ends of the equation. It’s one thing to acknowledge that you don’t have a guy who can guard Embiid, but they also threw the towel in using Vuc (yes, I acknowledge he was BBQ on defense) to space Embiid on defense and open up lanes to the rim. Because of this, Embiid was maximized on both ends.
If they started Vuc for game 7 , and just let him space the floor and take Embiid out of the paint would’ve been huge for White and Brown
Why Garza in fucking game 7 , Vuc has ample experience
Because Vuc was literally straight ass the entire series even in the games we won. Like he was completely useless on offense and was getting worked on defense. Garza was actually playable in our rotation this year and was alright on offense. Do I like the idea of rolling him out game 7? Not really. But I also don’t like the fact our entire rotation was shrunk to like 6 players the whole series. Joe needed to shake it up, made the call, maybe the wrong time, but Vuc was not the solution
Idk, pulling that off in a win or go home game 7 when you have home court advantage is not it. Maybe if they did it in Game 6 and then lost then starting Garza would’ve been (maybe) acceptable.
Game 7 wasn’t time to throw Hugo Gonzalez to Embid to see if it works
Your thesis hinges on the 76ers respecting Vucevic’s shot. Nick Nurse doesn’t respect Vucevic’s shot and thry would’ve just dared him to shoot.
Which is why even if the Celtics somehow made the finals, OK C or SAS would absolutely crush them. It wouldn’t even be funny. It would be a four-game cakewalk
They werent gonna get past the Knicks, I dont know why people thought they would win the East.
It’s pretty obvious. They were the 2 seed, the 1 seed was considered fraudulent, and in any given series they’d have 2 of the 3 best players.
Tatum and Brown are both really good, but they aren’t transcendent superstars that can easily carry a deeply flawed roster to the finals. We’ve seen this story before, a team papers over the cracks to do surprisingly well in the regular season, then gets exposed in the playoffs.
They can get away with mediocre big men in the regular season a lot more easily than they can in a playoff series against Embiid. Maybe they “should have” won in 4, but the last 2 games made it pretty clear which team was better when Embiid is back into the swing of things. If they shot better from 3 they could still win, but they didn’t, so they lost. They had three wide open 3s that would have put them up 2 late in the 4th and missed them all.
Did we even paper over the cracks? We were projected to be like a 40 win team. We dropped all our bigs, and even acquiring vuc was a financial decision.
The only way we were beating the 76ers this rounds was if white was hitting his shots. Bill knew this too and said it on his show.
There are valid criticisms of mazz and we probably should have won, but 76ers played harder and made their shots.
KAT, Brunson and OG are better than both of the jays in their current form.
Then why was Bill happy that embiid returned?
Because we were struggling to keep pace with maxey and he thought 76ers defensively weren’t that good so the slowing of the game played to celts advantage (in his mind)
I don’t think many people expect pg to play this well
D White played like that the entire year
This didn’t happen in a vacuum. Look how they played against the Knicks last year.
Was vucevic not available? He didn’t even get to try
To be fair, Vuc was never known for his defensive prowess
Vuc actually guards Giannis well off the bounce
I thought he’d put Vuc in once Embiid was hobbled. Vuc isn’t good at defense and all, but I figured having a 7 footer at least prevent a 1 legged Embiid from shooting or grabbing boards would help.
Vuc was DNP’d Games 6 and 7, he’s beyond cooked
Damn. It’s gonna be crazy seeing him take a vet min. as a backup center, with an occasional good shooting night. Chicago legend.
Yeah. When Embiid plays like that, the only chance the Cs had was to hope that their 3s hit.
Their center rotation was dismal
and still took them to 7 with their best player coming off a major injury and missing a large chunk of the season, and Tatum did not even play in game 7
Mazulla did the best he could
Embiid didn’t even start the series. They were already the 2 seed all season without Tatum.
Yeah, saying “they took them to 7” doesn’t work as an additional point to the “they couldn’t guard Embiid”
Celtics were a -1000 favorite before the series to win (90% implied probability)
Stop acting like this was a moral victory lol
While true, the expectations were only that high because they over achieved in the regular session by so much. Before the season a lot of people thought they should throw this season away to try and get a good draft pick.
embiid didnt play a few games it would be sixers in 5 or 6
I mean lets not talk like the Celtics weren’t the 2 seed who was up 3-1
They never should have lost game 2
Nah. Hauser was too slow for this series and Joe kept playing him over our bench wings for way too long. Nurse found a speed and effort edge against our lineup and Joe adjusted way too late.
He also ignored the new wrinkle to our offense this season, that even if we miss a bunch of 3s we have a bunch of high energy offensive rebounders who can get a lot of those misses and he, again… didn’t play them.
He’s a good coach, great at a lot of areas, but this series and insisting on moribund Porzingis last season against the Knicks are very clear negative marks on his resume.
Why does he look like he’s about to cry???
because he is
He thought Lakers were gonna lose 4 straight games + Celtics advance. Tough week for Bill.
Love to see it
Supposedly hes really hung over lol
“Did Philly win this series or did Boston blow it? I think it’s both,” is a classic copium signal of a middle-aged homer who’s in the middle of a crash out.
he has permanently bloodshot eyes they always look like that
His crippling gambling addiction
Raptors lasted one day longer than the Celtics, hang the banner
He found his new Doc Rivers
In a do or die game with the season on the line Mazzulla started Garza and Ron Harper Jr. Even Glenn wouldn’t do some dumb shit like that lol
Glenn started Danny green on trae young single handidly losing the sixers game 1 of that series. He also spammed montrezl enough to get fired from two separate teams
Yeah but Danny green is a bonfire multi team champion. I have nfi who those names above are
Got high on his own supply.
When you’re considered kind of a “mad scientist” coach, sometimes you look like a genius and other times you can get too cute and not stay out of your own way. We saw the latter with Mazzulla in this series.
Garza is vaguely defensible so Queta didn’t in his usual early foul trouble. Ron Harper is lunatic behavior.
Not putting in vicevic or any center to box out a hobbled Embiid was also a head scratcher.
Wasn’t Vucevic hurt? He didn’t suit up.
Played the rest of the series, box score said coach’s decision, and I didn’t see him on any injury report. He just couldn’t guard Embiid.
No one could. But at least they had some guy named Gonzalez bricking up threes.
one ring then jack shit
Yeah bro Joe Mazulla is why Derrick White shot like Kyle Singler this series
The Celtics literally started the game giving up a 9-0 lead with an extremely wacky lineup.
It’s pretty big stretch to say that coaching didn’t impact that game
Yeah, I get it’s fun to clown Bill Simmons’ takes (especially about the Celtics), but pretending like Mazzulla didn’t have multiple baffling decisions is weird.
The lineup to start the game was strange as hell, it went terribly, and then by the time Mazzulla went away from it, the hole was already the final differential.
Their continued hyper fixation on 3s also hurt them: in the final 3 games they shot 39, 41, and 49 threes despite shooting 28%, 29%, and 26%. I get the simple math itself says it’s smart to keep shooting, but sometimes good process is adjusting your strategy when something keeps not working.
Not to mention the absolutely wasted challenge. Although I guess you can blame that one assistant for it. His other assistant (Philadelphia’s own Amile Jefferson) tried desperately to stop it.
Across a whole season, the math plays out fine, but in a short series, one could be on the wrong side of the math and lose.
Generally, normal people will only look at the positive outcomes and ignore the negatives. Even those paid the big bucks choose to gloss over the negatives and aren’t immune to the fallacy either.
A 90 percent effective plan still means 10⁄100 times it will fail.
This is the second time his team shot itself out of the playoffs in a series they probably should’ve won. Seemingly, he learned nothing from the previous incident.
Yeah, this is pretty much the issue with just preaching math without context.
Like, 3s are inherently higher variance shots.
Like, a 35% 3pt shot yields 1.05 points per attempt, while a 50% 2pt shot yields 1.00 points per shot. Over time, that clearly benefits the 3pt shot.
But in super small sample sizes the worst outcomes are more likely for the 3pt shot. If you take 10 shots at 35% from 3, you have an 8.5% chance of make 0 or 1 shot. You have a 26.2% chance of only making 2 or fewer shots. So more than a quarter of the time, you’re coming away from 10 possessions with 6 points or fewer. Meanwhile, you only have a 5.5% chance of making only 2 shots or fewer from 2. And only a 17.2% chance of making 3 or fewer shots from 2. You have about a 10% greater chance of a “disaster” outcome (6 points or fewer in 10 possessions) when taking 3s vs 2s.
Now, there is plenty of trickledown math to consider as well (e.g. opportunities for 2nd chance points and the boost to the opponent’s offense off of a miss vs a make) as well as a bunch of tactical and psychological considerations as well, but when you’re a more talented team, relying heavily on 3s increases the chances you may lose, imo. But if you’re an underdog, the positive outcomes are a better proposition.
You gotta try something if your best Player suddenly misses a game 7
Didn’t they get within 2 in the last few minutes? That matters more
Now do the math on how that would have looked if they didn’t start with a 0-9 hole
whole context of the game would have been different. Butterfly effect. Maybe Brown tears his Achilles in the 3rd instead.
doesn’t matter that they started 0-9 they were literally in the game with a chance to win and chucked up 4 terrible 3s when they were down 1 or 2 pts
That’s not how that works
They started out in a deficit and it took a lot to claw back into it. That was directly due to a lineup issue in the first quarter. I think he coached well the rest of it but that one decision was horrible
So let me get this straight, are you guys saying that starting the game down 9-0 doesn’t impact win probability?
That’s what we’re going with?
It’s a game of runs, and there is no possible way to distill a 9-0 deficit after 2 minutes of game time into anything meaningful when the game was very close at the end.
Really well?
If I’m a Celtics fan I let it go tbh. Just let everything be. It’s okay. Disappointing but all the pieces are there. Take it all the frustration, feel what you feel, but don’t be rash. you have what you want to succeed again.
A very rational take! That’s my plan.
We won two years ago, no one can take that from us. But I also don’t wanna dwell on that, so I’m looking at next year in a positive light. We have all the tools to reconfigure the team and make it better.
We won two years ago, no one can take that from us.
The Celtics only won because of [REASONS], so there’s a huge asterisk on that one.
Lol I was gonna say…, the losers will definitely try!
The crash out tour continues.
Anything but blaming Derrick White for Celtics fans lmao
I mean, if we’re pointing fingers at players, maybe we should point the finger at the one where the team performs worse when he’s on the court
It’s not his fault the refs have an agenda against him
Yeah, he should try pushing off and flopping to even the playing field.
A lot of us are putting blame on D White brother
what happened with him? Seems like he fell off a cliff
Falling off a Cliff could actually explain a lot of things, like perhaps he sustained multiple chronic injuries while doing that?
Podcast curse hit him hard. Dude needs to put down the mic and fix his shot.
Did you even listen to anything the man said?
No he only read the title. Also if that guy took the time to see our sub people were declaring we trade D White and that he was washed.
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Lmao. Bill Simmons grasping at straws
Yeah, going to Game 7 is pretty competitive. Nothing to he ashamed of. Sixers are a good team too, they have rising stars Maxey, Edgecombe, and solid veterans like PG, with a top 5-10 player with Embiid.
Come on, this is a big embarrasment for the Celtics, they were literally the East favorites, 2 seed (and most of that without Tatum so should be even better now), they play the 7 seed without probably their best player for 3 games and he is not great first game back at least for the flow of the game. Then they lose 3 straight and lose a 3-1 lead, all while Embiid comes back from appendicitis and all his knee issues and stuff. There is no excuse. Philly easily could have won game 3 without Embiid as well. And who knows how the series would end if Embiid played every game, is it s 5 game series, 6 maybe?
Some teams are just better in the regular season than the playoffs. Some weaknesses just don’t get exposed in the regular season. Everyone expected this to be a gap year for the Celtics for a reason, the roster is just a bit weak. The lack of size was always going to be a problem, and trading Simons for Vucevic was a whiff. If they were able to get a center that wasn’t washed, they probably would have won the series.
Really embarrassing? They had 0 expectations this year and did a garage sale on the roster. They completely exceeded all expectations.
I get what you mean. But the Sixers with Embiid aren’t really a 7th seed, he only played like 30-40 games this season. And the Celtics also had injuries this series. I think their level of play was very comparable and competitive.
Losing a series after 3-1 when the opposing team’s superstar player comes back is understandable to some extent lol. The Celtics and most of the league don’t have an answer for Embiid, and Celtics themselves don’t even have a healthy top 10 guy right now (Tatum is still coming off an injury).
I just think the optics aren’t as bad as what Bill Simmons is saying, but it is always fun to poke fun at Boston or LA when they are down I guess lol.
He’s right, Mazzulla ball has led to three of the most embarrassing losses out of the last four seasons. And the season we won the championship was because our roster was just too good.
Facts alot of coaches win with that roster. These playoffs loses under mazzulla have been ugly. Gets out-coached routinely.
He shat on the COTY award and is finding out that coaching actually makes a difference. Who knew?, lol
Steve Kerr Agreed
Mazzulla ball (the high 3P shooting) is a system that results in high variance outcomes.
So there’s the year when you win it all.
And then there are years when you collapse and you shoot yourself out of a series, like with NYK last year.
The Celtics was lucky that the positive but unlikely high-variance outcome happened quite quickly (basically the second year they were running that system), or else they may have never won.
They won because the roster was stacked and they were 10x better than everyone else.
This is so stupid. Stop treating basketball like math
Don’t yell at him, tell Mazzulla!
Wasn’t it pretty much the exact same roster in 2025 as the one in 2024, though?
Yes although Jrue Holiday was 34 and had declined in production from 2024 (42% from 3 to 35% for reference). KP had an even harder time staying healthy (57 games in 2024 and 42 games in 2025). Then we all saw what happened to Tatum.
Same names on the roster but guys weren’t playing as well as the year before. That’s what makes sports interesting.
That game 7 was definitely weird. Joe Mazz waited until they were down 15 to play his best players
As much as I like Luka Garza, he never should be anywhere near a team’s starting rotation.
Joe was too conservative. Garza never ended up hitting anything but he is great for a struggling offense because of the ORebs. More than anything he needed to shake things up. They were walking in mud and he should have been more aggressive more early with playing the energy wings. I think they would have run Embiid off the court eventually. He looked gassed after one game of that.
This is the same sentiment that Thinking Basketball has mentioned multiple times on their podcast once Tatum came back, they started to go back to their iso heavy old ways and stopping playing the way that got them to 56 wins in the season with their best player out with an achilles tear.
Tatum be like that. He has a Kobe role play quota to meet.
Bro really thinks the celtics bench who overachieved in the regular season would actually make a difference in the playoffs? LOL.
TBH the bench wasn’t bad in the playoffs, they was one of the reason we went up 3-1. But nobody didn’t expect Mazzulla to make that big of a lineup change.
Joel Embiid not suiting up until game 4 seems like the real difference maker versus Boston’s Bench. Boston just didn’t have a reliable solution for guarding Embiid.
How is Mazzulla going to make the celtics grow 5 inches and gain 80 pounds of muscle to matchup with Embiid? He’s a coach, not a Genie. I’m a Cavs fan and I’ve seen Embiid give Mobley and Allen trouble.
He is the worst B. Simmons in sports history.
For what it’s worth, I think Bobby Simmons is the goatt B. Simmons.
Maybe Bill and JB can cry on livestream together
Celtics need to bring back Glenn for one more run.
Mazzulla’s biggest flaw in this series was in refusing to change his system. He put all his faith in the math working out and it didn’t.
Think he’s super overrated but on an unrelated he also just seems like the weirdest most annoying dude trying too hard. He did the weirdest thing a coach has done in years by turning an innocent question about the royal family into a nonsensical Jesus rant
Simmons is a moron. Did he get a series prediction right?
Bill is sort observing the right thing but he is missing that the sixers played the celtics role players off the court. They attacked scheirmann on defense and made Walsh shoot. They stopped helping as much on defense and made the celtics beat them 1 on 1. Hauser, Scheiermann, Walsh, and Gonzalez can’t do that at a high enough level.
Is bill insanely stoned everyday? His eyes are perpetually red
We had the lowest pace itl this regular season. Team was killed with Tatum off the floor.
How did a previous generation give so many ignorant people platforms in basketball spaces?
He gave you basketball like you want… exciting. You have to love it, even when it misfires. Otherwise, you asking for scores under 100.
Is the only reason this guy is popular is because Boston has been the mecca of sports success since the new millennium? Because this dude has the most insufferably annoying voice. I can’t imagine anyone who isn’t a Boston homer wanting to ever listen to this
Really, over Tatum not playing? What a dumb take. They got a 3-1 when Embiid was out for the first 3 games. And then they lost the next 2 because Embiid started cooking. They still had the chance to close out at home in Game 7, but then Tatum was out.
Pink eye Simmons always makes me irrationally uncomfortable
Elite centers are feasting again and Celtics got caught with big ole zeros at the center position.
He should of trusted his bench more but his bench was shitting the bed so meh.
I dont put it on mazulla. They didnt have anyone to cover embiid dude, like. sixers had the 2 best players on the series (embiid/maxey).
Yeh blame the coach for the team blowing a 3-1 lead lmao
“Did Philly win or Celtics blow it, both” man that is some serious mental gymnastics at work. Poor billy, going to have to sleep in the sauna tonight drinking spiked lemon water
How is that mental gymnastics? It’s just true.