Head coach Joe Mazzulla has Boston Celtics four wins away from championship
Boston Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla, centre, celebrates with his team after Game 4 of the NBA Eastern Conference basketball finals against the Indiana Pacers on May 27, 2024, in Indianapolis.When Celtics guard Derrick White stood in the corner behind the 3-point line late in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference finals as teammate Jaylen Brown drove into the lane, drew defenders and flipped a pass toward him, White felt prepared for the moment.
White trusted that Brown would make the correct basketball play. He did, and it ended with White connecting on a tie-breaking 3 that ultimately secured Boston’s place in the NBA Finals and a matchup with the Dallas Mavericks. “Things that you can’t take for granted,” said Mazzulla, who at age 35, is the youngest head coach to reach the NBA Finals since Bill Russell did it in 1969. “Sometimes it’s as small as getting the ball inbounds. But just try to pick little things, that we see on a nightly basis that can impact winning and can affect losing. And, we just practice them over, over and over again until they become second nature.
Lead assistant Charles Lee and Sam Cassell have helped Mazzulla tweak a system built around 3-point shooting and defence, which saw the Celtics rank first and third, respectively, in offensive and defensive rating during the regular season. Last season, it was in film sessions that began with Mazzulla showing the team images of sand castles, which he used as a metaphor that even the best castles get washed away by the daily tide – requiring them to be rebuilt.Mazzulla’s tactics were on display again during a blowout win back in March over Phoenix. He went viral after he sprinted to contest Phoenix’s Royce O’Neale’s practice basket heading into a timeout.
“We can laugh about it. But at the end of the day I think you have small moments in your organization to set the temperature of what you want to be about,” Mazzulla said. “We did that last year and thinking back that’s an important thing that mindset that we try to bring. That we’re going to bring it every day. That we want our opponents to constantly be uncomfortable. We don’t want to give them an edge at any point.
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