The Boston Celtics have reached their sixth Eastern Conference Finals in eight seasons. They’re currently awaiting their opponent for Round 3, as the New York Knicks and Indiana Pacers continue to battle for the privilege to advance.
Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla didn’t go into much detail, but did touch on what his team has to do to prepare for both teams.
“Both are really good teams, both present different challenges, and we just have to be ready to take those on,” he explained to reporters on Friday.
Boston’s bench boss spent plenty of time discussing the ways that his team has managed to stay prepared throughout the year, pointing to studying trends around the NBA as a way to remain sharp.
“One of the things that I think we enjoy doing together is studying the league,” Mazzulla added. “Like, studying wins and losses. Studying why a team wins, why a team loses, why a team calls a timeout, why a team doesn’t call time out, why a team goes on a run, what stops a run, what are the keys towards winning a game. A lot of the times throughout the year, we wouldn’t just watch ourselves, we’d watch a segment of another game around the league and say, ‘Hey here’s what’s going on around the league, here are the trends.'”
The C’s second-year head coach added that he expects teams to be “extra creative” when they play his squad in the postseason. He credited the Celtics’ open-mindedness for helping the group stay ready for different strategies from the opposition.
The first two opponents Boston’s faced, the Miami Heat and Cleveland Cavaliers, have each tried to knock them off of their game by forcing the Celtics to attempt fewer threes. They’ve still managed to lead the league in long-range attempts in the playoffs, but they’re down four per contest from their regular-season average.
Boston was able to combat this, winning both series 4-1. Specifically against Cleveland, the Celtics did a great job of imposing their will in the paint. They did a better job of not only hunting mismatches but actually taking advantage of them when they got them. Rather than settling for fadeway jumpers, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown attacked the basket.
Once the defense began to react to that, then both stars were able to rack up the assists by kicking to open shooters, like they did in Game 5, a victory that included Brown distributing a playoff career-high seven assists.
Whether it’s Indiana or New York, Mazzulla is going to ensure that the Celtics are as prepared as possible for whatever challenges await them.
Joe Mazzulla finally addressed a question he and the Celtics’ players mostly shook off all season. What’s different?
Boston shook off its allusions to banner 18 following unfinished business a year ago. The team went with different here, which became clear through the team’s consistency, dominant regular season play on both ends and two playoff series largely free from slip-ups and drama. The Celtics took care of the Heat and Cavs in five games after losses in Game 2 of each, rattling off three straight wins to finish them by reacting to how each opponent played them.
“I think that’s the real answer to what everybody asked all year about, oh, what’s the difference between this year and last year … the difference is we’ve had time and experiences to pull from, and we’ve had time to talk about those,” Mazzulla said during his Friday Zoom session in response to a Boston Sports Journal question.
“We’ve had time to talk about how we want to go about what our daily process is. We’ve had time to talk about how we want to handle situations. We’ve had time to talk about how we’ve handled past situations … throughout the offseason and throughout the season, we’ve had time to build a relationship together, to have open and honest communication … the words that you use end up reflecting the type of group that you have or the type of group you want to emulate … how we handle successes and failures together.”’
Both Miami and Cleveland showed Jayson Tatum intense pressure and crowds. The Heat tried to coax Jaylen Brown into derailing the offense by stashing Tyler Herro on him. The Cavs aggressively helped at the rim in layers, forcing kick-outs and daring Al Horford to shoot. Tatum and Horford’s offensive struggles didn’t deter either, both eventually breaking out in Game 5 against the Celtics after relying on Derrick White, Jrue Holiday and Brown to create offense. The defense rallied from Game 2 letdowns with performances that resembled past greatness on that end and contrasted against last year’s lapses on that end.
So what changed? The personnel did, certainly, though Kristaps Porzingis’ calf injury in Game 4 at Miami risked lapsing into last year’s play style and relying on the three. Shooting 40% from deep allowed the Celtics to close out the Heat in Game 5, along with three major injury absences on Miami’s side that Cleveland would also suffer from, but the Cavs made a concerted effort to out-shoot Boston from three and did for four games. That led to Boston allowing paint looks once Donovan Mitchell went down, reducing the volume of threes that Cleveland could generate.
“The one thing this team has done a good job of this season is not playing with any expectations,” Mazzulla said. “If you’re winning by a lot, if you’re losing by a lot, it doesn’t really matter. At the end of the day, it takes what it takes and you gotta be present. The team has done a good job fighting for that. I think that’s important, managing our own expectations.”
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