Joe Mazzulla was dealt another pre-camp surprise this year, though it’s much less stressful than the one dropped on him a year ago. Getting an All-Defensive-level player like Jrue Holiday, albeit for a price, is probably less stressful than learning you’re about to become a new head coach in the midst of a scandal involving your former boss.
“I feel like he's a little more comfortable,” Jayson Tatum said of Mazzulla. “This time last year was new for all of us and I think Joe did a hell of a job managing all of that and managing expectations, managing being in a new role so quick. He had a hell of a first year in my eyes and now having time to prepare properly as a head coach for the upcoming season and taking ownership of this being his team as the head coach. I'm not saying he wasn't comfortable, he's just a lot more comfortable and confident heading into this year.”
It’s easy to project comfort and confidence when you get to study for the test instead of winging it. Mazzulla was tossed into the deep end of the pool and had his swimming form criticized. Some of it was fair, some of it wasn’t, and Mazzulla is hoping to learn from it all.
“I think that we’ll be able to talk more about those as the season goes on saying like, ‘hey, this is what I thought about last year and this is kind of how we’re approaching it this year,’” Mazzulla said. “Just really excited to have the data available from last year, and then being able to pull that and apply that when necessary. And then at the same time, being able to just reinvent and express myself as a coach and then allow the space for our team to express who they are and then create a shared identity, create shared ownership, and a shared vision for where we want to be toward the end of the year.”
Where they want to be is on duck boats riding down Boylston Street in June. Actually, considering the incredible cost of this year’s team both in real dollars and in useful personnel, they had better be on duck boats or else something went really wrong.
Expectations are their highest since 2008. Mazzulla has to live up to them.
“No one is going to have higher expectations than I have of myself and that we have as players. We know the end goal is to win a championship,” Mazzulla said. “That’s why everybody does what they do, that’s why we spend the entire season away from our families, that’s why we have positive emotions, negative emotions and at the end of the day, we’re all trying to achieve something that’s really, really hard.
“And so, the expectations are the expectations. So I always say that I’d rather be in a city like this that has high expectations instead of going somewhere where there are no expectations … Going through an NBA season is really difficult. Really hard. But it’s fun.”
One of Mazzulla’s big advantages from this summer was the ability to put his own coaching staff together, even though last year’s crew of holdovers from the Ime Udoka season held together pretty well. The Celtics got to revamp their coaching staff this summer, with Sam Cassell and Charles Lee as the most notable hires. When asked about the specific roles for each coach, Mazzulla said he likes to approach the roles a little differently.
“We kind of took this approach of, like, tribal leadership of communicating and working in teams of threes and fours instead of one-on-one,” he said. “How can we build a shared vision, how can we build communication and how can we build ownership? And so we have like an offensive team and then within that offensive team, each person has an individual role and then we have a defensive team and within that team, each person has an individual role and a communication that they go through together is super important, so by the time we get to a full team meeting, we’ve already had a group of people argue, go over and talk about their philosophy and what they want to do.”
It’s obvious Mazzulla understands that he has to change some of what he did last season. He has a staff of his choosing to help, but it’s not just up to the coach to change.
His team, which wilted often enough that they drew a tongue-lashing from the team’s owner during the conference finals, has to grow as well.
“We just have to be the toughest, most physical, most open-minded team,” Mazzulla said. “We have to have a collective approach of toughness, of having that mindset and having the togetherness. … At the end of the day, it’s like ‘What is our daily approach?’ And it doesn’t have to be nice all the time, we don’t have to be friends. I want us to be extremely, extremely competitive, extremely extremely tough on both ends of the floor, and extremely, extremely connected.”
GETTING DEFENSIVE
That toughness will show up on the defensive end, where the Celtics have the potential to be one of the best in the league. A lot of that will depend on Kristaps Porzingis and his ability to defend the rim, but a lot will fall on Tatum and Jaylen Brown.
Both have expressed a desire to make All-Defensive teams, and for Brown, that means challenging himself to perform on a nightly basis.
“I think that at different points of my career, I’ve been able to display my defensive ability. But not enough,” Brown admitted. “I think that when I’m dialed in and I make sure that I’m challenging myself, I think I can be one of the better defenders in the world, and that’s something I’m challenging myself with. Meet more guys at the rim, make more plays, have more of a presence defensively, something that I’m looking to do.”
For Tatum, the key is “consistency night in and night out. We'll have to win. We're gonna have to be one of the best defensive teams and all those things, we’re capable of doing that. And, you know, we just got to have attention to detail every single night on that side of the ball.”
The every night thing is probably the biggest issue. There will be nights where guys just don’t have it, but that needs to be the exception. Boston had a tough time last season when it came to playing down to lesser opponents (to be fair, that can be a storyline for most good teams). For Boston to be truly elite, they have to buck that trend.
“Obviously you don’t want to ride that rollercoaster of the season,” Derrick White said. “This is the NBA, everybody can play. So we have to have that mindset each and every game that we have to prove something. From top to bottom, everybody’s just gotta be ready to go whether you’re tired, whatever, injuries, different stuff like that, at that point in time we’ve just gotta find a way to have that right mindset each and every game.”
THRUST INTO THE LEADERSHIP SPOTLIGHT
With Marcus Smart gone, Tatum and Brown are being thrust into front-and-center leadership roles with the Celtics. Brown says he’s ready.
“I think definitely, hearing my voice a little bit more this season, JT’s voice a little bit more this season, also making sure we all are on the same page, we all are focused on the main objectives, etc.,” Brown said. “Sometimes it can be external pressure, through expectations, through playing in Boston and media, to helping some of the newer guys and younger guys navigate that, and we just focus on the work, focus on the day-to-day process, focus on trying to put our best foot forward and trying to be the best team we can possibly be.”
Tatum maintains that the team hears him plenty, it’s just not something that's always on camera.
“I might not be the loudest, but I speak my mind,” Tatum said. “I listen to guys, and guys listen to me, so it’s a mutual respect thing. Is there pressure? Yeah, we have a really good team. We have really good players. People expect us to get to the championship and win, and when we don’t, we didn’t necessarily meet expectations. It’s a handful of teams each year that can realistically probably win the championship, and we’re in that mix. So that’s what we’re aiming for, and that’s what we should be aiming for.”
HANGING WITH LEGENDS
Tatum and Paul Pierce were attached at the hip for a while this summer … so much so that Tatum didn’t even wait for questions at media day. He just sat at the table, proclaimed he could guess what would be asked, and then launched into the workouts with Pierce.
“I spent a lot of time with Paul Pierce this summer, which was great,” he said. “He was really motivated. Paul actually lost 15-20 pounds. It was about four weeks. He came to the gym every day. It was cool to have him around. He told us a lot of stories about the championship team, a lot of things we’ll try to help apply to this year. And hopefully, we can see a lot more of Paul.”
Pierce and Kevin Garnett have been spotted with Celtics players all summer, most recently at a Colorado football game with White and Brown.
“CU is the place to be right now. It's exciting,” said White of his alma mater. “It's always been fun going up there and watching the games, but there's definitely an added level of excitement and energy in Boulder right now and it's cool. And I was happy JB wanted to go and I was like, 'Come on, let's go.' And obviously, seeing KG and Paul there, it was just cool to see everybody there and supporting it. JB is now a Buffs fan, so that's cool.”
INJURIES EXPLAINED
Tatum spent all season with a wrap on his left wrist and thumb, the result of a reaggravation of an injury the season before. He says the wrist is fine, even though he didn’t get anything surgically repaired.
“Got a bunch of second, third and fourth opinions on (it), surgery wasn't a common one,” he said. “So (I) wasn't all the way certain about it, but, you know, did all the right things this summer. Took all the right measures, I guess, to make sure I was healthy and prepared to come into the season with no distractions.”
Kristaps Porzingis also says he’s fully healthy for the season, blaming his bout of plantar fasciitis on new footwear.
“I think it started because I changed shoes during the summer,” he explained. “I think that’s what kind of got the foot a little sensitive. I didn’t pay too much attention to it, kept working out, kept playing, because training camp was about to start for our national team.
“I was actually in great shape and feeling good, just the foot was a little bit bothering me, so I told the medical staff and they told me to rest for a few days. We just couldn’t get that much progress in a short time. So the smart decision was for me to sit out and make sure the foot gets to recover before I start the season, and that’s what I did … now I’m 100% to start the season.”
BIGGER OPPORTUNITY
Payton Pritchard might have been in the mix to get more minutes after the Smart trade, but now that Brogdon is gone as well, he’s being thrust into some potentially meaningful minutes.
“I’m looking forward to the opportunity to be part of this team and try to do something special,” he said. “I’m going to miss the players we traded because I built relationships with them, learned a lot from them through my time here. But it’s a good opportunity for a lot of us to step up and show what we’re capable of and how we can impact winning. So I’m looking forward to that.”
Last season, Pritchard requested a trade in an effort to get more playing time. That never came to pass, and maybe that was a good thing for him.
“As hard as it was, and the competitive nature in me, like it was tough, but I definitely think I matured a lot last year through not playing a lot,” Pritchard said. “That’s something you do your whole life, all of us. We play all the time. To be the guy on your team and then for the first time in your life, you’re not going to play, so it’s a big change for us to experience that. And for me, I think I matured a lot; my game grew, but mentally I grew in all areas. Now, it’s a long season and it's about balance and finding your routine and rhythm in life.”
