(Photo by Adam Glanzman/Getty Images)
The Boston Celtics doubled down on Joe Mazzulla ahead of this season, as they should.
Judging a coach after one season isn’t fair, and Brad Stevens made sure to surround him with a better supporting cast for this campaign.
The Celtics had the best record in the league by a landslide, but there were still some doubts about Mazzulla’s coaching.
He’s allowed other teams to go on huge runs more often than not, and it seems like he hasn’t had the team ready to perform every now and then.
Nonetheless, he has the utmost faith in his players and wants them to know that they have to overcome adversity if they want to be a championship team.
Following their win in Game 3 vs. the Indiana Pacers, Mazzulla claimed that he didn’t panic because he knew being down big was ‘normal,’ as all teams would be losing in the playoffs at some point, citing the Dallas Mavericks’ 18-point comeback in the previous game (via Noa Dalzell).
Joe Mazzulla said he was proud of how the Celtics embraced being down double-digits:
“At one point, I looked at the scoreboard and said ‘Dallas was down 18 last night. This has to be normal, we have to know we’re going to be losing in the playoffs at some point.’” pic.twitter.com/jQdMQGWdJR
— Noa Dalzell (@NoaDalzellNBA) May 26, 2024
That’s valid, although it might be better not to allow the other team to jump to an 18-point lead.
Still, the Celtics have proven to be talented and resilient enough to overcome these kinds of deficits.
Talent alone won’t win you an NBA championship, and coaching also plays a big factor, and while it’s important that players know it’s not the end of the world and they can work their way back into a game one possession at a time, they need to stay focused for 48 minutes.
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