The Boston Celtics got stifling fourth-quarter defense, 35 points from Jaylen Brown and a strong second half from fellow star Jayson Tatum to land the team’s fourth straight win and 11th in the last 13 games over the Hornets on Tuesday night. It is another piece to a remarkable job this year from both coach Joe Mazzulla and Brown, whose MVP turn this season was one of the main drivers of Boston’s surprise finish.
It’s been Mazzulla, who is so often overlooked nationally, who has been getting attention lately, though. That’s thanks in part to Giannis Antetokounmpo, who had praise for the way Mazzulla coached the Celtics to win this year, when it would have been very easy to tank with Tatum out.
Antetokounmpo has been frustrated with the Bucks all season. He told Lori Nickel of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel when he spoke with Mazzulla this year, “I said, ‘You had so many opportunities to make excuses, but you didn’t.’ (The Celtics started the season slow.) And he said, ‘Oh, they’re good players.’ I said, ‘No. It’s about the mentality that you instilled in your place.’”
Celtics’ Joe Mazzulla: ‘Can’t Do Anything’ Without Players
After the win on Tuesday, Mazzulla talked with Celtics reporters and was asked about his reaction to what Antetokounmpo said. As has been typical, he reflected praise onto the players, especially the ones he’d already had experience with–Payton Pritchard, Sam Hauser, Derrick White and others.
“Obviously, he is a great player,” Mazzulla said. “But I think my reaction was like, you can’t do anything unless you have the players to do it. And I think that’s—it may sound like it’s not saying a lot, but it’s just that simple. I think the greatest gift you can have as a coach, especially in the NBA, is to have a group of players that have a high competitive character, care about winning and want to get better. I think it starts there. That’s kind of, that was my response to that.”
Celtics Aiming to Lock Up No. 2 Seed
The win over Charlotte sets up a matchup against the Knicks in which the Celtics can seal the No. 2 overall seed in the Eastern Conference on Thursday. It’ll be especially significant for Tatum, who tore his Achilles tendon last time he was on the court at Madison Square Garden last May in the conference semifinals.
It’s possible the Celtics will see the Knicks again in the playoffs. As things stand, that matchup would come again in the conference semis. That potential rematch would be a credit to Mazzulla, too, who said the key to finding how good these Celtics could be came down to identifying “knowns.”
Joe Mazzulla Found the ‘Knowns’ on his Roster
Here’s what Mazzulla said about the Celtics’ approach: “We talked a lot about with JB, coming into the season, there were a lot of unknowns. We had to get to the knowns. Like, what do we know? We know JB is gonna lead, getting better as a player and getting better as a leader. He is going to be in position. He thrives in situations like this when the deck is stacked against you, you got a chip on your shoulder, JB thrives in that. We know that.
“We know all the players we had for opening night, what they’ve done for us—Derrick, Payton, Sam—they’ve won games for us. We know what Neemy has done for us, Jordan has won games for us. We get to the notes, we know JT was going to do everything he could to get back. We know that. So, with all those knowns, we said, ‘OK, here’s where we’re at, how do we go about this?’”
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