![]() The two-big work look worked when Mazzulla eventually went to it against the Philadelphia 76ers, but "it was a lot harder" against Miami, Stevens said. He said that, "from a lineup standpoint," it was tougher to be "what we could be defensively at our most dynamic" because, after offseason surgery on his left knee, Robert Williams III only appeared in 35 games and played limited minutes, in an effort to get him as healthy as possible for the playoffs. Stevens pointed out that, as well as finishing the regular season with the second-best offense in the league, they had the second-best defense. And we obviously didn't shoot the ball well, and Miami shot it great." I do think that if I had to say one end that we came up more short on, in our last few games, it was probably the offensive end, with the turnovers. "And on both ends we came up a little bit short. "I thought that we had to improve offensively to become better, to compete, and we had to be able to play defense and maintain that level and identity that we had prior to to be our very best," Stevens said. At his end-of-season press conference, he said that offense turned out to be a bigger problem than defense against the Heat, just like it was against the Golden State Warriors last season. To team president Brad Stevens, however, it's not that simple. After falling down 3-0 against Miami, Mazzulla himself said that the Celtics had lost some of their defensive identity. Malcom Brogdon said Monday, after Boston was blown out in Game 7 at home against the Miami Heat in the conference finals, that "offense was our calling card," adding, "I don't think you win championships with a better offense than you have a defense." The Athletic's Jay King and Jared Weiss reported Thursday that Brogdon wasn't the only player who believed the team had tilted too far in one direction: Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown met with Mazzulla in March and advocated for Grant Williams to be on the floor. First-year coach Joe Mazzulla obsessed over the offense, prioritized spacing when constructing the rotation and deemphasized two-big lineups featuring Robert Williams III and Al Horford.
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