The Power Of Mazzulla Ball: The Celtics Are Now Owners Of Arguably The Greatest Offensive Performance In The History Of The NBA

Brian Babineau. Getty Images.

Coming off a long road rip, the first "get back" game is always tough. Generally, it doesn't really matter who you play. That first game back is usually never as easy as you'd expect. In the long list of amazing accomplishments so far this season, the fact that the Celts have won every one of their "get back" games this season is pretty impressive. With the long West Coast trip behind them and their brutal final 13 minutes against the Nuggets where they could make a single shot (1-15 stretch) which ultimately robbed them of hitting 40/20, I think we all needed a bounce back game.

With the Nets in town, normally that would be a layup game right? Well, because the Celts are one of the most hilarious teams in existence, they almost always fuck around while playing the Nets. They lost to BKN in November, and their game in January was the 2OT thriller that was capped off by Hugo's game winner. If you are a Celts fan who sees BKN on the schedule and just assumes it's an easy win, you haven't really been paying attention. It should be, but sometimes the NBA can be weird like that. There are matchups that are never quite as easy as you think for whatever reason. The Nets play hard as hell, they play with elite ball pressure, sometimes MPJ can go on a heater etc. 

Last night looked like one of those types of games at the start. Only the Celts could start a game with 70/100% shooting splits and only lead by 3. Thankfully, things turned quickly. So much so, by the end of it we had witnessed one of, if not the greatest offensive displays in NBA history. It was Mazzulla Ball to its full effect and holy shit, there's truly nothing like it

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Pretty sick joke by the Basketball Gods if you ask me. They couldn't have let the Celts have some of the makes from last night against the Nuggets down the stretch? Instead, they gave us this from 1:46 of the 3rd quarter to around 5 minutes left in the 4th when Joe pulled everyone?

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Pretty rude in my opinion given the significance of that game. But I guess that's just basketball baby. One night you'll literally miss every shot you take despite how wide open it may be or how close to the rim you are. The next night, your entire roster will literally never miss. Doesn't matter who is shooting or where it's shooting from. In my humble opinion, I prefer Option #2. Way more for an enjoyable experience.

Over the last 4 years, there have been a plethora of ridiculous Mazzulla Ball moments that have come at every stage of the season. While some of us knew what we were watching in Year 1, there were still some out there that did not believe in Mazzulla Ball. Hell, I'm sure there are some who still don't because they have rocks for brains. They call his approach "stupid". They call his system "flawed". 

You know what I call it? 

Historic.

Not just because it produced an NBA leading 18th championship banner, but also because of nights like last night. Think of how many games have been played in the NBA. Go all the way back to the 1950s. You've never, ever seen something like you saw from Mazzulla Ball last night. In case you weren't aware, you are reading this blog in 2026. 

Alright, no need to edge you any longer. Let's get to the goods.

The Good

- Long time readers will know that the #1 rule of this blog is if you are a player and you go out and do some Larry Bird shit, then you are where we start. In terms of this game, that means the play of Jaylen Brown

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Coming off the Nuggets game in which I would say Jaylen was complete and utter dogshit, this was a much more welcomed sight. After a slow start in the 1st quarter, Jaylen missed just 1 shot the rest of the game. I'm not sure I can remember seeing that too many times before and I've watched a lot of Celtics basketball in my life. Outside of the 0-4 start from the FT line, pretty much every aspect of Jaylen's night was great. The scoring production, the efficiency, the playmaking, it was all a joy to watch.

The way Jaylen came out in the 3rd quarter was basically how the Celts began to create their true separation. Whether it was his scoring or plays off his passing, he was responsible for the majority of the Celtics points to open the 3rd quarter, and the next thing we knew the Celts were up 20 and the belt was in full effect. The best part? Only 2 TOs. To do all that in just 30 minutes, well I'm not sure it gets better than that.

I didn't find it all that surprising that Jaylen had an efficient 28 or 7 rebounds or 9 assists. What I did find surprising was the 4-4 from deep. Even though it's not a major aspect of his shot diet, there's no denying that as the season has gone on, Jaylen's 3P production has dipped. At the moment, he's sitting at 34.9%. Not terrible, but certainly has room for improvement. Over the last two months, it was 33% in January and 32% in February. If you're telling me that we can live in a world where his outside shooting can get closer to what we saw earlier in the year and can get back to more of a league average number? And this team gets to add Jayson Tatum? I'm not sure what defenses are going to do and they're already having a tough time limiting Jaylen offensively. 

- Basketball can be a funny game at times. A perfect example of this in my opinion, would be Nikola Vucevic. Coming off his worst game as a Celtic against the Nuggets where his poor play was severely impactful to how DEN pulled away, it only makes sense that he would immediately respond with his greatest game as a Celtic and show every single basketball reason why Brad made the trade at the deadline. If you were every curious what a peak Vuc performance would look like playing Mazzulla Ball, well here you go

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Yes, I know the level of competition this came again. But you're doing that thing again where you expect me to give a shit. I don't care who it comes against, I would just like the team and the players to play well. For Vuc, he had been making me nervous just in terms of his shotmaking. It was starting to give me Fournier PTSD. My brain needed to see a shotmaking explosion like this from him, even if it came against a 15 win team.

And while this doesn't mean you should ignore how he looked in say, the Lakers or Nuggets games, I don't think you should ignore this either, mostly because a lot of what we saw is sustainble. Open looks from the corners? Rebounding? Finding cutters? All of those things are valuable. Sure it won't always look like this once the competition increases in the playoffs, but can it be 70% of what we saw last night? 80%? That's all I'm asking for. Make your open looks, rebound, and punish defenses with your passing. 

I also noticed that Vuc seemed to have found a counter to defenses attempting to pull the chair out on his post ups. That had happened repeatedly over the last few games, which told us the book was out on how teams were going to try and defend that action. Clearly the Celts identified it on film, and he adjusted. Love that for both him and for me. It's certainly a luxury to have two starting caliber centers between Vuc and Queta, both who give you completely different skillsets. The flexibility and versatility that gives Joe and the roster will be important in a few months, and if this was a sign that Vuc is starting to get more comfortable in Mazzulla Ball, well then the sky is the limit

- If you're noticing a theme here, this was a nice bounce back game for pretty much all the guys who were dogshit against the Nuggets. Next up? Come on down Payton Pritchard!

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I don't know who will end up winning 6MOY this year, but deep down they'll know they got that award because Payton Pritchard started 46 games before moving back to the bench after the deadline. Felt great to be back to seeing Pritchard cook, and honestly it was a little annoying to see this level of aggressiveness from him knowing that we desperately needed that against the Nuggets, but those are my own demons that I'm working through. 

If there's one thing we do know, it's that if you're a bad team, then Payton Pritchard is going to bury you. You're not going to be able to contain him, and once he sees a few start to drop, well we know what happens next. We get an offensive explosion like we saw last night. He got to his spots in the paint whenever he wanted, which is a zone he thrives in. The deep threes were flowing. It was Vintage Payton Pritchard in pretty much every area.

- Remember how pathetic the 2nd half was against the Nuggets? I'm pretty sure the Celts had like 28/28% splits or something horrific like that.

Well…

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82 points on 71/71/94% splits with 10 3PM? How the hell is this even possible in an NBA game. Even against bad teams, you still should not be able to do something like this over an entire half. A quarter? Maybe. But a full 24 minutes? I can't even say these are video game numbers because 2K wouldn't even let you execute this well. 

Outside of Banton (sigh) everyone who touched the floor for an entire half basically never missed. Every single guy! You didn't even see some sort of bullshit where a shot rolled around the rim and somehow didn't drop. Watching it unfold in real time didn't even feel real. Especially given the shot profile of that half.

It was one of the greatest offensive displays in the history of basketball. It was Mazzulla Ball.

- I am so Hugo pilled it's not even fucking funny. 

He's going to be so good. Don't try and fight it, just accept it. Brad did it again. He took his highest draft pick ever (#28), and nailed the pick. Drafting was really the last box Brad had to check. It wasn't a case where he couldn't do it, we just had to see how the picks developed over time. Picking so low, you're just looking for prayers. Can you find rotation level players in the late 1st/2nd round? Many GMs can't. Brad Stevens? All signs point to this being yet another area of his job that he's awesome in.

- Take Baylor Scheierman for example (#30). He's legit good now. 

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A solid 10/3/6 on a perfect 3-3 (2-2) in his start last night, if the question was always if Baylor could prove to be a real NBA player, the answer so far this season has been an astounding yes.

Again, you're just looking for playable guys when picking that low. For an expensive roster like the Celtics have, hitting on guys like Hugo, Walsh, Baylor etc is so important to roster building, and Brad has hit on them all! That's easily been the biggest story of the season for me. I know Jaylen Brown is good. I know Payton Pritchard and Derrick White are good.

We did NOT know what to expect from the young wings. They had virtually zero NBA experience! And it just so happens that in their first real shot at legit and consistent minutes they all turn out to be hits? That is some devil magic shit. 

- A nice little 4-8 from Derrick from behind the arc. Just put a pin in that. 

The Bad

- Alright, it's kind of hard to be too upset given the performance we saw, or really find all that much to put in this section, so let's start with some things that annoyed me.

Luka Garza missing that FT that would have put the Celts up 40. I needed the 40 point win, mostly because I wanted to tweet out how both the 2023-24 Celtics and the 2025-26 Celtics lead the NBA in 40 point wins. He robbed me of that, so that was annoying.

Also, Ochai Agbaji, what the hell man. No need to actually try and score all those points at the end. That was bullshit. Just take your belt and move on. 8 points on 3-3 (2-2) all in the final minute or so to prevent the 40 point win? Grow up. 

- Seeing Josh Minott do cool shit made me happy for him, but sad for us. He was so promising early in the year, then things just sort of shifted out of nowhere. This was the stuff that we used to have 

and while I wish him the best, I do wish there was a world where he was still on the roster. I think there's a real player in there somewhere, and he was a guy who fully embraced his role as a Celtic and gave us legit flashes. I get why they moved on, he wasn't playing, but it was still sad. 

- On a scale of 1-10 what level of sickness is it that in a 37 point win I'm still annoyed that the Celts gave up 111 points? For a team that's been holding opponents, good ones at that, to under 100 with ease, to allow 111 to that Nets team bothers me more than it should. It's irrational, but I can't help it. I have become addicted to holding teams to under 100 points. Once you get a taste of that life, it's hard to go back. 

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111 points isn't even that much, which again, speaks to my sickness.

The Ugly

- I have no idea what to put here, so I am going to go with Jaylen starting the game 0-4 from the FT line. That was bad. Very bad. He went 6-6 following that start which was good, but 0-4? Can't have that. Giving away free points will always put you in this section, especially in a game where literally nothing else really went wrong or was all that bad.

Given where we are on the calendar, we all know what comes next. The time has come to officially begin #InjuryReportWatch. There's a chance that this was the final game of the season that does not include Jayson Tatum. Think about that. If it doesn't happen tomorrow, you can't help but feel like the announcement isn't too far away. Once we get into March, every game becomes a possibility. 

Check ball.