Joe Mazzulla Explains Holding Onto Timeout On Final Play Of Game 2 Loss
Boston Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla walked off the floor at TD Garden following a crushing Game 2 loss to the New York Knicks on Wednesday night with a timeout still in his pocket.
Mazzulla opted to not use his final timeout after Jalen Brunson hit a free throw to put the Knicks ahead by a point with 12.7 seconds left. Instead, he let the Celtics play out the final possession and things got messy as Mazzulla just looked on.
Jayson Tatum drove to his left from the wing into a crowd along the baseline and when he elevated between two Knicks defenders to try to kick a pass out to Jaylen Brown, Knicks forward Mikal Bridges stole the ball to seal a 91-90 win for New York and a 2-0 series lead.
Mazzulla explained the Celtics ran the same full-court action that got Tatum, who struggled offensively by scoring just 13 points on 5-for-19 shooting, a wide-open dunk on their previous possession. But when trying to replicate that on the final play, they got a much different result with the Knicks ready for it.
“Got a good look on the exact same play 20 seconds earlier,” Mazzulla told reporters, per NBC Sports Boston. “Tried to execute the exact same thing. They did a better job of their lower pick up point and we weren’t able to get the advantage that we had on the last Tatum dunk.”
Mazzulla usually likes to buck coaching trends, but calling a timeout right after Brunson sunk his free throws would have been beneficial for the Celtics for a couple of reasons.
The timeout would have saved the Celtics a couple of ticks on the clock by advancing the ball and gave them multiple chances at scoring. If the Celtics missed a shot quickly following a timeout, they could have fouled with the Knicks only able to extend their lead to three points. That would have set up one more last-ditch attempt for Boston to potentially tie the game.
“You don’t know that at the point of JT was driving left,” Mazzulla said. “Thought he had a good look, saw it at an angle. Didn’t shoot it and ran out of time.”