Tatum-less Celtics are inspiring, Cavs are not, new anti-tanking measures

Welcome to From The Logo, a collection of opinions, analysis, and locker room insights from theScore's lead NBA reporter, Joseph Casciaro.

The Celtics never say die

Everyone who expected a gap year in Boston has egg on their face a third of the way through the season.

The same Celtics team whom many of us assumed would tank in the wake of Jayson Tatum's Achilles injury - plus the departures of Jrue Holiday, Kristaps Porzingis, and Al Horford - finds itself in third place in the Eastern Conference with a top-six overall point differential.

Boston enters most games at a size disadvantage, but head coach Joe Mazzulla and the remnants of the 2024 championship team have found an identity that works for them. The small-ball Celtics compete enough on the defensive end to maintain a league-average standard, but it's their shockingly effective offense that has propelled them up the standings.

The formula is simple: Boston shoots a ton of 3-pointers, crashes the offensive glass, and rarely turns the ball over. It helps that the team's only non-big who's taken more twos than threes - Jaylen Brown - can't miss from mid-range. Brown has leveled up with Tatum sidelined, averaging 29.4 points, 6.4 rebounds, and 4.9 assists while shooting roughly 55% on shots inside the arc.

With Brown playing the best basketball of his career and shooters spread out around him, opponents are constantly left scrambling, leaving them susceptible to long rebounds and momentary lapses that allow Boston multiple cracks at the basket. Ten of the Celtics' 11 most frequent rotation players - all but starting center Neemias Queta - average at least one 3-point attempt per game, converting between 33% and 45% of those tries. The result is a fourth-ranked offense that's scored more efficiently than last year's Tatum-led attack (and is only slightly off last year's pace relative to league average).

"Their roster is built in such fashion where pretty much everyone can shoot from behind the 3-point line, and they're all very efficient in doing that," Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic told theScore before Boston beat Toronto on Saturday despite Brown sitting out. "When you're creating a lot of (opponent) closeouts, and your (expected points per possession) is about 1.37 on those closeouts, you're gonna score a lot of points. At the same time, they're a team that plays hard."

Rajakovic also called Celtics guard Derrick White the most underrated player in the league.

Meanwhile, Raptors star Brandon Ingram marveled at Boston's unflinching commitment to its game plan. "They do what they do, no matter if the ball is going in or not" Ingram told theScore postgame. "You see them shoot 40 or 50 threes in a game. They'll continue to do it whether the ball is going in or not. They're going to live by it."

While players like Brown, White, Sixth Man of the Year-turned-starter Payton Pritchard, and the rest of the Celtics deserve their share of credit, Boston's relentless consistency is rooted in Mazzulla's maniacal dedication to it. Considering his intensely physical training camp, day-to-day demeanor, and no-nonsense approach to every possession, it feels foolish that we ever expected a drop-off in Boston. During the team's win over Indiana on Monday, a fed-up Mazzulla made a full hockey-style line change, removing his starters 2:28 into the second half as the Celtics dug a 20-point hole at home.

For Mazzulla, the expectations didn't change with Tatum sidelined, because big-picture projections don't fit his group's ethos. "Our expectation is just, create an identity and have a process of winning," Mazzula said. "We don't really talk about anything other than making sure we come in every day and stick to our process of winning and what that looks like. We try to keep it to that, and it's that simple. I haven't really thought about it any other way."

That may sound like cliche coach-talk, but when Mazzulla says it, I tend to believe it. You genuinely get the sense that he can't comprehend why expectations or results would change when a superstar is removed from the lineup. The Celtics have taken on that same belief, and it's fueling the NBA's most inspiring team.

What's wrong with Garland and the Cavs?

Languishing a couple games behind Boston in the standings is the league's most expensive roster. The Cavaliers entered the year with Finals-or-bust expectations but have spent most of the season just trying to keep their heads above water.

This dovetails nicely with a question from app user glegaree16307, who wanted to read about Darius Garland's regression. The two-time All-Star is averaging his lowest scoring numbers in five years while shooting worse than ever from virtually every area of the floor.

In many ways, Garland's woes mimic the team's as a whole. The 25-year-old missed the first seven games of the season while recovering from toe surgery, later suffered a contusion on the same troublesome left big toe, and is now dealing with a quad contusion. Like the Cavs themselves - who've lost the seventh-most value to injury, according to Spotrac - Garland's ineffectiveness can be at least partially explained by rotten injury luck.

But at some point, that's not an excuse. At least three of Garland, Donovan Mitchell, Evan Mobley, and Jarrett Allen have been in the lineup for 24 of the Cavs' first 31 games. They own a pedestrian 13-11 record in those games despite Mitchell playing out of his mind (31 points per game on 64% true shooting). They've been favored in 28 of 31 contests yet sit 17-14 overall with the league's worst record against the spread. The constant lineup changes are surely taking a toll, but it's impossible to ignore the fact that Cleveland just isn't playing with the same verve it did last year, when it won an East-best 64 games.

Mitchell is doing his part to keep a top-10 offense humming, but the team's defensive decline can't solely be attributed to Mobley's absence. Cleveland simply needs to play better and stop acting like an accomplished veteran squad that's already bored with the regular season. Frankly, this talented group hasn't accomplished a damn thing together in the postseason, during which it has gone 2-3 in playoff series over the last three years despite being favored in four of five.

The Cavs need to get their act together.

Are new anti-tanking measures coming?

The NBA has begun to discuss new anti-tanking measures, according to ESPN's Shams Charania. One potential tweak could see teams barred from receiving a top-four pick two years in a row. That's a positive step in the right direction, as is the reported idea to limit mid-lottery pick protections that lead to mediocre teams masquerading as terrible ones by resting players.

As long as the lottery exists in some form and draft picks remain tethered to team performance, tanking will always exist. That's mostly fine. What the league should be doing is finding ways to curb the most egregious examples of it, especially when legalized gambling means the integrity of games has never been more scrutinized or imperative.

In addition to preventing teams from winning the lottery in consecutive years, I maintain that the league should further flatten the lottery odds and use the lottery to determine all 14 picks rather than just the top four. That would eliminate the floor, which currently guarantees that teams can't fall more than four draft slots from their place in the reverse standings. As I wrote in March: Imagine if the league's worst team had a 10% shot at the No. 1 pick with the potential for its selection to fall anywhere in the top 14 rather than a 14% chance of picking first and a top-five guarantee.

Would teams still be eager to punt entire seasons in pursuit of those odds?

Inside the locker room

What I'm hearing from players and people around the Association.

Mazzulla is a psycho: Many have wondered whether Mazzulla's intensity and media interactions are part of some comedic shtick. This is a man who once claimed to watch "The Town" four times per week. He removed the stage that separated him from Boston's media members after his coaching staff walloped them 57-4 in a pick-up game meant to humanize their working relationship. He recently said that he looked into getting a wolf for outdoor security at his home. An interaction with a child reporter that began with "It's Kids Day at The Garden ..." ended with Mazzulla telling the kid that having fun is a cop-out.

Ask those who've played for him and they'll tell you, Mazzulla isn't role-playing or committing to a bit.

"It's definitely not a game. That's just Joe," Celtics forward Josh Minott told me. "He's a unique person. He's really big into martial arts. There was one time he was helping me up off the floor, and he gave me a jab instead. Basically, it was a defense lesson. He told me, 'That's the most vulnerable you can ever be is when someone helps you up off the floor.' So, now we have an ongoing joke that we won't help each other up."

What other NBA head coach would welcome hand-to-hand combat with his players?

"I've wrestled him before," Celtics wing Jordan Walsh said. "One day, I just came up behind him and put him in a chokehold. He fought back. And he won. It's alright. I'll get him back."

The opportunity to defend against another ambush likely excites Mazzulla. "He doesn't fake anything. What you see in the media is his authentic self, and it shows every day," Walsh said. There's a reason multiple players have lovingly referred to Mazzulla as a "psycho" over the years.

A $92-million question: Before we got to talking about Mazzulla, the hot topic in Boston's locker room was Anthony Joshua's knockout of Jake Paul. A few Celtics players were discussing whether Paul's broken jaw was worth his reported $92 million payday. The prevailing sentiment was that they would all accept the beatdown - jaw injuries included - for such an outrageous sum of money. Even players already making more than $20 million per year agreed.

Player of the Week

Jaylen Brown: 31.7 PPG, 57.6% TS, 8.7 RPG, 5.3 APG, 2.7 STL + BLK, 2-1 record

This week's award actually counts games played dating back to the last edition of From The Logo on Dec. 12, but it was one of the easier times I've had picking a winner. Brown has been that good.

Brown is carrying a tremendous load on the offensive end, where only Luka Doncic and Giannis Antetokounmpo own higher usage rates. Rather than wilting under the weight of those responsibilities, Brown is putting together the most efficient season of his career and still bringing it on the defensive end. The four-time All-Star is cruising toward his second career All-NBA selection and some down-ballot MVP votes if he stays healthy.

We want to hear from you!

Perhaps you want my opinion or insight on a burning NBA question you've had. Or, let me know if there's something specific you'd like me to ask your favorite player the next time they're in Toronto, where I speak with people from around the league before and after they face the Raptors.

Whatever it is, you can submit your questions three ways.

• Comment on this story in theScore app
• Email me at [email protected]
• Send me a message on X (@JosephCasciaro)