Joe Mazzulla just cost his team a chance at a deep postseason run.
To reduce a seven-game series loss to one scapegoat is unfair; the Boston Celtics lost to the Philadelphia 76ers for multiple reasons. And Mazzulla has certainly earned some benefit of the doubt after leading his team to the championship just two seasons ago.
Yet the Celtics just gave up a 3-1 series lead and lost in painful fashion to Joel Embiid and the 76ers. Mazzulla ran his rotation in such a way throughout the entire series that when Game 7 rolled around, his star forward was sidelined with an injury, and his replacements weren't ready for primetime.
And yeah, that is his fault.
Joe Mazzulla deserves plenty of blame for the loss
Jayson Tatum looked incredible for a player coming off of an Achilles tear. The one-year anniversary of his injury has not yet arrived, and Tatum was playing inspired basketball. He wasn't at his normal All-NBA level, not quite, but he absolutely deserved to start and play solid minutes as one of the Celtics' best players.
His impact was all the more important because of how Jaylen Brown struggled down the stretch of the season and into the playoffs. Brown's go-to scoring move involved creating separation with his off arm like a running back stiff-arming his way to paydirt; referees began calling that as an offensive foul leading into the playoffs, and suddenly his greatest advantage disappeared.
The Celtics needed Tatum, especially against a 76ers team getting healthy at the right time with multiple players capable of exploding for 25 points at any given time. Boston needed Tatum's playmaking and scoring and shooting in addition to his length and instincts on defense.
That need turned into desperation, however. Mazzulla rode Tatum heavy minutes from the very start of the series. In Game 2, he played 39 minutes, followed by 42 minutes in Game 3. He again played 41 minutes in Game 5. By Game 6, he was exiting early with a lower-body injury that kept him out of Game 7.
Mazzulla felt that he needed Tatum in the early part of the series, but he certainly needed him more on Saturday night. We don't know whether Tatum was injured because of his heavy minutes or if it was related to his Achilles injury. But it might have been.
The vague messaging around Tatum's injury also ran through the head coach. What really happened to Tatum? Whose decision was it to miss Game 7? The Celtics should be celebrating a hard-fought series victory and preparing for the New York Knickerbockers. Instead, everyone is lobbing questions and accusations at the Celtics, and the coach is largely to blame.
Tatum's backups weren't ready
There was a downstream effect of playing Tatum so many minutes throughout the series. The Celtics won the No. 2 seed not because of how good Tatum was once he returned, but because they cultivated a collection of high-energy defensive wings that simply ran opponents over all season long.
Jordan Walsh. Baylor Scheierman. Hugo Gonzalez. Ron Harper Jr. These players all came up huge during the season. Come the playoffs, Walsh and Scheierman were pushed to the fringes. Harper and Gonzalez were largely nowhere to be seen.
In Game 5 and Game 6, Mazzulla largely refused to go to his young wings, instead riding his proven veterans. Then in Game 7, suddenly he needed them. Were they ready, warmed up and tested and equipped to go to war?
No, they weren't. They were rusty and cold and caught off guard. Mazzulla started Scheierman, Harper and backup center Luka Garza in Game 7 on something of a whim. It backfired, because of course it did! Those three combined for 0 points, the first time in playoff history that three starters for a team all went scoreless.
Joe Mazzulla deserves a lot of credit for what he has built in Boston. The only reason we know names like Harper and Gonzalez is because of the development work that Mazzulla and his staff have put in.
In this series, however, he got too cute. He tightened up too early. And when it mattered, his star player was sidelined due to an injury that might have been preventable. And his replacements were not ready for the responsibility.
And in the end, Boston lost. And it just might be Mazzulla's fault.