Humble Pie Never Tasted So Good

This Celtics team proved me wrong.

I’m eating humble pie right now — and I couldn’t be happier.

When Brad Stevens began making changes this summer, my hope for a successful season dwindled.

Jrue Holiday, Kristaps Porzingis, Luke Kornet and Al Horford. Losing one of those guys would hurt. Losing all four? When each of them was so instrumental to the 2024 championship run?

Brutal.

In came:

Anfernee Simons, a swashbuckling scorer who previously led the line for the Portland Trail Blazers, joined the Celtics with a torrid reputation for his work on the defensive end.

Luka Garza, a big man who shone in college but struggled to find much runway in a crowded and talented frontcourt with the Minnesota Timberwolves. And, like Simons, he came with significant red flags surrounding his defense.

Josh Minott, another young talent, has found consistent minutes difficult to come by under Chris Finch. Minott, however, had a little more shine when talking about his defense, and his athleticism at least had people excited to see what he could do in a larger role.

Hugo Gonzalez, the rookie out of Real Madrid. Limited tape made him an enigma, although if you spoke with any European scouts, then you would have heard about how much of a baller, competitor and exciting talent he is.

Hardly an influx of talent to get excited about, right?

And that’s before we looked at the undoubted elevation of Neemias Queta and potential playing time for Jordan Walsh.

I wasn’t surprised when we saw projections of the Celtics being a 30-win team this season. I mean, I was slightly higher, projecting in the 35-40 region. I didn’t see this roster as a .500 team. On paper, there were just too many variables.

Jaylen Brown, long recognized as one of the best forwards in the NBA, has never been tasked with leading an NBA offense for an entire season. He’s done it for stretches of games, but a whole year?

This was Joe Mazzulla’s first masterstroke.

Rather than expanding Brown’s overall role, layering him with more on-ball duties, playmaking requirements and cutting responsibilities, Mazzulla simply increased the volume of what he was already doing.

He hit the turbo button on the play finisher role.

Brown is third on the Celtics in touches, averaging 67.3 per game. That’s marginally lower than Payton Pritchard’s 67.9, and significantly behind Derrick White, who is getting 80 per night.

Sure, Brown’s touches have risen to the tune of 10 per game — he averaged 57.1 last season — but most of that increase has come in the frontcourt, where he’s jumped from 30.4 last season to 37.2.

For the most part, Brown isn’t bringing the ball up the floor more than in previous years. Instead, he’s crushing defenses when the rock finds him in the half-court.

His drives are up from 12.7 last season to 17.5. And, even with the increase in volume, he’s finishing those drives with a 58.7% efficiency, despite the extra 2.6 shots per game (6 attempts via drives last season, 8.6 this season).

Then, there’s Brown’s pull-up shooting. We’ve all seen his mid-range assassinry this year. He’s jumped from 6.5 pull-up attempts per game (with 2.7 of them being from deep) last season, to 10.8 this season (with 3.3 coming from deep). Brown’s shooting more off the bounce, but not from deep.

Instead, he’s attacking the pockets defenses leave in the middle. And in return for Mazzulla’s faith in Brown’s shot selection and talent in the mid-range, he’s converting 51% of his looks — 52% if you’re just looking at middies between the free-throw and three-point line.

Here’s Brown’s heat map on the season so far.

Of course, with the increase in play finishing, Brown has seen a steep rise in usage rate, which measures the player’s role within an offense. He’s gone from 29.2% last season to 37% this season — a staggering jump — especially when factoring in his overall efficiency.

Part of Brown’s scoring success has been the rise in assists he’s receiving on his makes. Almost 1-in-4 of his buckets are coming via a dime, well, 24.7% to be exact. To be fair, this is what you would expect from a high-volume play-finisher.

Brown is creating for himself, finishing his meals when others serve him up, and making smart reads when the defense tries to take him out of an action.

Mazzulla didn’t expand Brown’s role — not drastically anyway — instead, he increased it. He saw what Brown does well and said, ‘Yeah, give me more of that.’

He challenged one of the best two-way, three-level scoring forwards in the NBA to score on a higher volume and do so without firing up poor-quality looks.

Brown has responded with an MVP-level start to the season. He’s feasting on the increase.

There’s another side to this, though: defense.

By not expanding Brown’s role to the point where he was overstretched offensively, Mazzulla has ensured the All-Star forward has the bandwidth to feed his hunger on the defensive end.

We saw it on Saturday, when Brown asked Mazzulla to guard Kawhi Leonard and then left him with nightmares, as if The Sandman himself had strolled through the Intuit Dome.

Brown deserves every plaudit, every social media post, and every word uttered on podcasts, radio and TV. The praise should be coming fast and loud.

However, Mazzulla also deserves his flowers. He devised a plan that positioned Brown in the spotlight in the best possible way.

Joe Mazzulla’s second masterstroke has been his tough coaching

Before the season began, I remember talking about how Mazzulla had a chance to put himself in an elite tier of coaches. I generally put coaches into one of three buckets

The players' coach: These are the guys you hire when the nucleus is intact, there are multiple star talents on the roster, and you need someone to gel everything together. Think Doc Rivers and Steve Kerr.

The Developmental coach: Someone who can take a group of young, raw talents and help mold them into high-level contributors or maybe even stars. Typically brought in during the early stages of a rebuild. Think Billy Donovan or Kenny Atkinson with the Brooklyn Nets.

The Elite coach: Someone who can do it all. They can be the players’ coach. They can navigate the pitfalls of a rebuild. And with it, they earn longevity within their role. This coach is a rarity. So rare that until last season, I only had Gregg Popovich and Erik Spoelstra in this bucket. Now, it’s just Spo. Mazzulla is proving he can join this bucket, too.

Mazzulla is holding everyone to the same standard. If you mess up, you get pulled. If you keep messing up, someone else will take your spot, and the fight is on to earn it back. Nobody escapes Mazzulla’s approach. He’s treating the 14th man (15th roster spot is still open) the same as he’s treating Brown, White and Pritchard.

When everyone is held accountable, a unity develops. There’s no hierarchy, at least, not in Mazzulla’s mind.

“Just like everyone else, continue to keep getting better and better,” Mazzulla said when recently asked about Josh Minott’s spell on the bench. “Having an understanding of the details of execution, things that go into the process of winning. That’s not an individual thing. That’s happened to almost everyone. Luka [Garza has] missed a few. He’s done a great job coming back. So just continue to get better and better and at the same time know anybody can impact the game at any time.”

It’s a cliche, but minutes aren’t being given; they’re being earned. You can see it in how the Celtics are fighting on the court.

The third masterstroke has been Mazzulla’s patience

Boston wouldn’t be where it is right now if Mazzulla didn’t have patience.

Patience to let White and Pritchard play through the teething issues of their expanded roles.

Patience to allow a contingent of younger, unproven players opportunities to learn on the fly, develop their game and know the door isn’t closed if they fall out of the rotation.

And patience to understand that growth isn’t linear. There will be some unexpected losses, bad shooting nights, bone-headed passes and head-scratching mistakes.

Success is a marathon, and that’s why teams that attempt to sprint toward the finish line usually wind up mired in purgatory for years at a time.

Boston has organizational patience. From Brad Stevens, to the coaching staff, the player personnel, the scouting department, the cleaners, ticket sales — success is a vibe that is shared, but it all begins with understanding that moments are fleeting but growth is permanent.

That patience will be tested again, no doubt. More losses will come. Hopefully not too many. Still, it would be foolish to expect this team to go undefeated between now and the end of the season.

Some of those losses will sting. At times, it will feel like the team is taking a step backward. Others, gaps within the roster will be more pronounced.

After all, this is a team that’s overachieving by having the whole be greater than the sum of its parts. And, if, as we expect, there’s some movement on or near the Feb. 5 trade deadline, there will be another period of patience and learning, as the Celtics learn how to get the best out of the incoming talent while staying afloat without whoever leaves the team.

No matter what happens in the coming months, the Celtics will likely continue to defy our expectations.

That’s why I’m eating humble pie right now. From the production of Neemias Queta to the exceptional season Brown is having. I, like many others, didn’t see this coming — but I’m so happy that it has, and I’m excited to see where this ride takes us.