3 Things Joe Mazzulla Must Improve in 2nd Season as Celtics' Head Coach
By Nick Galle
Attacking the Post
As most teams do nowadays, the Celtics live and die by the 3-pointer, but they did so at a historic rate last season.
Boston ranked second in the NBA with 3,492 attempts from deep, setting a single-season franchise record. It shattered the previous high mark of 3,044 long-distance tries, which was set a season prior.
The Celtics' heavy reliance on scoring from outside has come to be known as "Mazzulla Ball," and it's usually effective. After all, Boston did average the fourth-most points per game (117.9) in 2022-23 while finishing with a top-10 3-point percentage (37.7).
If shots weren't falling, instead of focusing on other ways to create offense, the Celtics would typically try and shoot themselves out of a deficit. Did it work sometimes? Yes. But when it didn't, man was it ugly.
Mazzulla should still center his offense around the three, but there needs to be some more balance. Boston finished the previous campaign with the third-fewest free-throw attempts (1,769) in the league and was tied for the seventh-fewest points in the paint per game (46.4).
If Mazzulla can find a way to keep this team in the top 10 in 3-point attempts while simultaneously turning it into a middle-of-the-pack squad when it comes to production inside the arc, the Celtics' offense is going to be unstoppable.
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