After the Celtics wrapped up practice Thursday at the Auerbach Center, head coach Joe Mazzulla was asked a boilerplate question about his substitution pattern.
His response: “What substitution pattern?”
He had a point.
Mazzulla said in training camp that he might never settle on a set rotation this season, and that prediction has held through the first 15 games.
Four Celtics players have started every game (Jaylen Brown, Derrick White, Payton Pritchard and Neemias Queta), and Mazzulla’s first round of subs typically features some combination of Anfernee Simons, Luka Garza and Sam Hauser. But his personnel usage over the course of each game has varied wildly.
That’s been most visible in how Mazzulla has deployed his four young wings. Jordan Walsh was a healthy DNP in four of the first eight games before breaking into the rotation and then the starting lineup. Josh Minott has played as many as 33 minutes and as few as eight over the last seven games. Baylor Scheierman has logged at least 11 minutes in the last three contests after sitting out the previous three. Rookie Hugo Gonzalez, who’s impressed in several of his early-season appearances, is coming off back-to-back DNP-CDs.
In a win over Memphis last Wednesday, Mazzulla utilized 12 different players before halftime for the second time this season. He’s used 11 players in the first half seven times and 10 six times.
“There hasn’t been (a sub pattern),” Mazzulla said. “There’s been no pattern. Can’t be a pattern if there is no pattern.”
Part of the reason why Mazzulla has employed such a deep, chaotic, ever-evolving rotation is that the Celtics do not boast nearly as much high-end talent as they did in previous years. With Kristaps Porzingis, Jrue Holiday, Al Horford and Luke Kornet all gone, and Jayson Tatum rehabbing his surgically repaired Achilles tendon, the gap between the sixth-best player on Boston’s roster and the 12th is slimmer this season, making it more palatable to play both.
There are benefits to this setup, though, Mazzulla said. For one, more subs and shorter shifts keep players fresher, allowing them to maintain the level of defensive intensity Mazzulla is mandating this season. There also could be some correlation between the Celtics’ deep rotation and the fact that they’ve been [one of the NBA’s healthiest teams](https://www.bostonherald.com/2025/11/19/jayson-tatum-less-celtics-benefiting-from-good-health-this-season/) through the first month.
Excluding Tatum, Celtics players have missed a total of one game due to injury this season. Garza sat out one with a concussion on Oct. 24.
“I don’t know the science or the medical data behind (whether the speed of today’s NBA is causing more injuries), but I appreciate the wear and tear, the physicality, the things that the guys do to get their bodies ready to play,” Mazzulla said. “And then the league is playing faster. I think that’s one of the reasons why not having patterns, playing 11, 12 guys, keeping guys fresh, that’s huge.
“Because at the end of the day, the way to be successful in this league, especially over the last couple years, has been with the effort and the toughness and the physicality of 94 feet and playing fast on both ends of the floor and pushing pace and dictating that. So it takes a lot more, and I think that’s more of why we’re leaning into anybody on any given night who (is) the freshest physically and mentally, and how can we take advantage of everyone’s strengths.”
#### A Minott moment
Tuesday night’s win over the Nets was a bounce-back game for Minott, who struggled in the previous game after Walsh replaced him in the starting lineup.
After finishing with no points and one rebound in 11 minutes against the Clippers, the 22-year-old tallied 10 and four in 19 minutes in Brooklyn. Minott went 3-for-3 from 3-point range in the win, and the Celtics outscored the Nets by 15 points with him on the court.
The moment Mazzulla spotlighted, though, was Minott’s reaction after a defensive error.
“He goes under a Michael Porter dribble handoff and (Porter) doesn’t make it, but (Minott is) still upset with himself,” Mazzulla said. “And that’s the process of it. Like, that’s not good defense, that’s a poor read, and you have to hold yourself accountable to it. So Josh seeing the appreciation and the importance of that play goes to show his growth. He called it out right away.
“So it’s just having an understanding of the process and the details of what looks like a solid possession on either end of the floor, regardless of what happens. Can you fight and just train yourself to be as disciplined as you can in those?”
#### NBA Cup update
Don’t be surprised when you see a bright green court on Friday’s game broadcast.
The Celtics-Nets matchup is the third NBA Cup game for both teams. Boston split its first two (win over Philadelphia, loss to Orlando) and currently sits in third place in the East Group B standings, trailing the 2-0 Pistons and 2-0 Magic. The Nets and 76ers both are 0-2 in Cup play.
The three group winners and top-ranked second-place team from each conference advance to the knockout rounds, and the Celtics have some ground to make up. The wild-card qualifiers in the first two in-season tournaments all had a point differential of plus-34 or better; Boston’s currently sits at minus-12, well behind Detroit’s plus-27 and Orlando’s plus-20.
Head-to-head is the first NBA Cup tiebreaker — the Magic already own that over the Celtics by virtue of their 123-110 win on Nov. 7 — followed by point differential.
No two-loss team has ever qualified for the quarterfinals, so the Celtics likely need to win both of their final group-play games — and win at least one of them convincingly — to have a shot at advancing. Their final group game is next Wednesday against the Pistons, who currently own the best record in the Eastern Conference at 13-2.