This team has played like trash for the last week and a half. They consistently play down to their opponents.
This team does not perform well when ranked 1st in the NBA and this dates back to last year. When the team had a clear path to home court they fell apart towards the end of the year letting the Bucks take 1st and that struggle continued into every series in the playoffs.
Mazzula has no sense of the game, which is why he struggles when to call timeouts, but that’s only a symptom.
There is no offensive scheme to this team, which leads to an extremely stale offense that has largely been exposed in the last few games. There probably isn’t a single coach in the NBA doing less with this much talent.
The team is struggling in almost every aspect, rebounds, free throws, leaving wide-open 3s, and closing out games.
Joe thinks he is coaching a street game and just lets the team play. They don’t have the experience to do that despite having gone deep in the playoffs a number of times. I was against him being made coach when he had the interim title and if this team is able to win a championship like last year it would have been in spite of him.
It’s not just timeouts, but that’s been an issue throughout his tenure as a head coach. He just doesn’t know when to call timeouts. That’s hard to argue against but go ahead.
NBA coaches call timeouts to break up the momentum of a run. Joe likes to have the team figure it out, and guess what they almost never do and he’ll eventually still call a timeout, but the run that was 10 points turns into 16 points.
NBA coaches call timeouts to figure out the last shot at the end of games. He doesn’t and it generally turns into a poor final shot by someone who shouldn’t be taking the final shot.
He put out shooters in the 4th quarter like Pritchard and Hauser. How many 3s did they put up in the 4th? No timeout to discuss making sure they’re getting the ball, getting good looks?