Joe Mazzulla has molded the Celtics into executioners

As the Celtics gear up to attack their title (we don’t say defend around these parts), I’ve been thinking a lot about the conversation around them during last season, and after its triumphant conclusion. There’s a sort of collective cognitive dissonance of punditry when the Cs are brought up. On one hand, the Celtics walked to the title; on the other, most “experts” picked the Mavericks to win.

I’ve often thought about why this team, specifically, elicited this near universal sentiment. The obvious reason is that Boston/New England teams win a lot, and those outside of the Boston fandom would prefer to downplay those successes, but I think it’s more than that.

There’s a subtlety to the way these Celtics play that isn’t obvious with a cursory evaluation. They aren’t built on a heliocentric superstar whose numbers constantly flirt with the history books. They also aren’t the 2014 Spurs, the epitome of ball and man movement, or the Steph Curry Warriors, who combine the two into a beautiful cocktail of basketball nirvana.

When you turn on the Dallas Mavericks, it’s obvious how good Luka Doncic is and how effective their style is. I mean, just look at his stats! It is the glorification of superstardom that fans engage in played out to nearly ad absurdum on an NBA court. It’s simple to grasp. The Spurs brand of basketball, while more appealing to purists, jumps off the screen as well. The screens, the backdoor cuts, the multitude of passes.

The Celtics are none of those things. They are built in a different image, one that reflects perfectly with its coach. Joe Mazzulla didn’t turn the Celtics into the Mavericks or the Spurs; he turned them into something entirely different. Joe tossed the Celtics a hood, a large axe, and a chopping block. He turned them into executioners.

The movement-spacing contradiction

Offensively, the Celtics have mastered the modern push and pull of NBA offense. You want movement, but you also need to maintain spacing. Movement that undermines spacing can actually hurt your offense, like an ill-timed cut that brings a help defender into the paint while a teammate drives or an off-ball flex action against a switching defense that goes nowhere, eating up precious seconds of the shot clock.

The Celtics almost never have those problems. Mazzulla has drilled into them the value of spacing, and the patience required to leverage that spacing with…