Celtics

One intriguing matchup in the NBA Finals is the head coaches: Which team has the advantage?

The Mavericks' Jason Kidd is far more experienced than Joe Mazzulla, the Celtics’ second-year coach. But is he better? I’m not sure of that.

By Chad Finn

June 5, 2024

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Firing up an open three while enjoying the anticipatory buzz of the NBA Finals. Even with the way-too-long layoff, the vibe around the Celtics — that they will do this — is giving me a welcome flashback to what it was like around here in the 1980s, I tell ya …

Pretty much every player-related angle, narrative, and historical connection when it comes to this Celtics-Mavericks matchup has been bludgeoned into a fine paste by this point.

Is Jayson Tatum a true superstar? … Can anyone slow down Luka Doncic? … Kyrie Irving vs. all of New England … Kristaps Porzingis vs. the Dallas Metro area.

We’ve heard all of those story lines, from various perspectives and voices, some authentic, many contrived, at all sorts of decibel levels. And then we heard them all again.

I swear, we’re one more day without a game away from debating whether the Celtics should have kept Dalano Banton rather than trading for Jaden Springer.

So no, there’s not much new territory to explore, but there is at least one angle that I think warrants more genuine conversation than it has inspired so far: Which team really has the coaching advantage.

Conventional wisdom would lean toward the Mavericks and Jason Kidd, based on experience alone. He has been an NBA head coach for eight years with three franchises (Nets, Bucks, and Mavericks, for the past three seasons). He has coached five playoff teams, and led the Mavericks to the Western Conference finals in 2021-22 (where they lost in five to the Warriors).

Kidd has never been regarded as anything close to a Spoelstra-esque strategist, but he deserves credit for maximizing the supporting parts of the roster after the in-seasons acquisitions of P.J. Washington and Daniel Gafford. And as one of the premier pure points guards in NBA history — and a player who went through his own steep highs and deep lows — he is probably the ideal coach for Kyrie Irving at this point.

He is far more experienced than Joe Mazzulla, the Celtics’ second-year coach. But is he better? I’m not sure of that. Mazzulla, with the support of ace assistants Sam Cassell and Charles Lee, has grown by Wembanyama-sized leaps this season.

He has become willing and even adept at deploying timeouts, and he’s not hesitant to light up his team when they need it. (I loved him telling them to stop hanging their heads when they trailed in Game 4 of the Eastern finals; no way he does that last year.)

He is also an extremely bright basketball mind who, while not exactly forthcoming with the media, has been served well by a new willingness to explain in detail his thought processes or what the data told him in a particular moment. He is a smart, modern coach who is getting better at handling everything that comes with that.

If he can battle Kidd to a coaching draw, the Celtics win this series. I believe he will. He might already be the better coach.

…

Back in the chaotic time of June 2021 — in the immediate aftermath of Danny Ainge “retiring” as president of basketball operations and Brad Stevens moving from the bench to Ainge’s old role — I wrote a column saying Kidd was one potential coaching candidate the Celtics should avoid.

A day or two after the column ran, Ainge called me. He was pretty accessible to me during his time here, and I’d occasionally hear from him, whether I wrote something he agreed or disagreed with, but this was a surprising call considering he’d just left the Celtics.

Turned out he definitely disagreed with this one.

Ainge, politely but straightforwardly, said he didn’t think I was fair to Kidd, that he had grown a lot as a person and a coach, and that he would be an excellent candidate for any team with an opening.

He acknowledged that he and Kidd had a longstanding friendship going back to their time with the Suns and remained golf buddies, but he was adamant that the personal connection aside, Kidd was a terrific coach.

Years ago, Celtics fans were rougher on Kidd than they have been on Irving. But I’ve always wondered whether there was some sliding-doors scenario in which Kidd might have ended up coaching the Celtics.

…

Prediction? Tell me how healthy Porzingis is, and I’ll give you a prediction.

Fine, I will anyway, but it was somewhat surprising Tuesday that, even as word came down that he will be available for Game 1, there’s still some mystery about how truly ready he is to go after missing the last 10 games with a calf injury.

Maybe it’s just one of those “you never really know until he’s out there” situations. But Porzingis’s extremely pregnant pause Tuesday after being asked if he is running pain-free — he finally said, “um … yes” — kind of made you think he is still feeling something in his calf, didn’t it?

So the prediction: With Porzingis at, oh, 90 percent, the Celtics win in six, and without much drama.

If he’s not right, I think this is a seven-game series, which will be brutal on our nerves, but ultimately fulfilling, with Jayson Tatum winning the MVP and Jrue Holiday making a big play or two that will become an instant part of Celtics lore.

Holiday might just do that anyway, no matter how many games the Celtics require to win it.