Celtics

Joe Mazzulla keeps focus on Celtics’ play when asked about possibly joining franchise icons with title in sight

"That will never happen if you don't run back on defense, rebound, execute, and get to your spacing."

By Conor Roche

June 16, 2024

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The Celtics are still one win away from a title, which would break a tie with the Lakers for the most in NBA history. A win would also likely stamp the legacies of many members for this iteration of the Celtics, with a title eluding Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown for years.

But that doesn’t seem to be on Joe Mazzulla’s mind ahead of Game 5 in the NBA Finals. When the Celtics coach was asked what it would mean to join the likes of Bill Russell, Red Auerbach, K.C. Jones, and others, Mazzulla made it clear that he wants his team’s focus to be on playing well for 48 minutes Monday.

“That will never happen if you don’t run back on defense, rebound, execute, and get to your spacing,” Mazzulla told reporters Sunday. “That’s the most important thing.”

The Celtics seemed to lack all of those principles in Friday’s Game 4, when they had their first opportunity to win their 18th title in franchise history. After a closely contested opening six minutes, the Mavericks ran away with a 122-84 win that might have felt worse than the score indicated.

The 38-point drubbing was the Celtics’ worst loss of the season. Their 35-point first half was the fewest points they scored in a half in Mazzulla’s two seasons as head coach. Their offensive rating (87.5) was their worst of the year and their defensive rating (127.1) was their fourth-worst mark of the season.

Mazzulla shared what the Celtics’ process will be toward making adjustments ahead of Game 5.

“Every game, regardless of how it goes, there’s always stuff that you can learn from and there’s always stuff that you don’t learn from,” Mazzulla said. “Regardless, I think the most important thing is our process toward getting better has been the same whether we have won or lost, whether we have won big or lost big.

“We have always tried to find the 10 or 12 possessions we can get better at and find the things we did pretty well and how can we do those more. I just kept a consistent process toward our postgame retrieval, and then how we grow with that heading into the next game.”

Other members of the Celtics were more willing to answer questions about what it’s like to play for the franchise and in Boston on Sunday. Jayson Tatum said he didn’t feel pressure from the expectations of playing for the franchise. In fact, he said he feels the “love and support from everybody in the City of Boston” as he’s seen Celtics gear throughout town.

Tatum also said he came to learn about much of the Celtics’ history during his rookie season with the team.

“I had no idea who Cedric Maxwell was. I thought he was just like a radio guy,” Tatum said with a laugh. “I didn’t know that he played on the team, and he won Finals MVP.

“So there were just different instances throughout the season in my rookie year where I would learn about different people that played an intricate part in this organization – the history throughout the Celtics and what the Celtics mean to the game of basketball. You just grow a level of appreciation through your time here.”