The Celtics did not come ready to play against the Nets on Friday night, opening the game in a 12-point hole after just three minutes. Joe Mazzulla normally is not one to overreact but he couldn’t help but calling a timeout after the ugly start to try to snap his team out of it.
Beyond the sluggish start though, Mazzulla quickly identified a glaring issue. The starting front court of Xavier Tillman and Al Horford was not going to be a sustainable combination against this uptempo Nets squad. That duo had entered the game with plenty of success last season and this year had a +43.1 net rating in 24 minutes in four games entering Friday night.
Tillman had fallen out of the rotation for the last few games amid the emergence of Neemias Queta so putting alongside Horford was a reasonable idea in theory to buy some minutes. However, Tillman and Horford did not match up well against the Nets guards after switches. More importantly, Tillman was not a willing shooter, misfiring on his first three shots and turning down other open looks on the perimeter.
Mazzulla was seen speaking to Tillman multiple times on the bench after those sequences and he ended up benching Tillman for the final 47 minutes of the Celtics’ overtime win.
“I mean, it’s hard at times if guys are in and out of lineups and sub-patterns are different, get into your rhythm, but at the end of the day, they just have to feel empowered that when they’re open, they have to shoot it,” Mazzulla explained. “They work at it every day. I watch them do it. I trust them, and obviously you want to pass and move the ball, but when you pass up a first good look, as good as defenses are in the NBA it’s harder to generate those late in the clock, and so they just have to keep being understanding and empowered that I want them to shoot when they’re open.”
