Celtics playoff notebook: A new training camp, learning from the past, and Team USA surprises

By the time the Celtics take the court against Team TBD on Sunday afternoon, the top six players on the team will have gone 13 days without playing NBA basketball. That's longer than the All-Star break. 

On one hand, that's a great stretch to get little nagging injuries to subside and maybe take a mental break from a season that started back in October. On the other, it’s a long time to not play meaningful basketball, especially with the next game being the launching pad for what everyone hopes is a championship run. 

"I’m pretty sure during the time Joe’s gonna have us do some crazy-ass drills to get us all ready,” Jrue Holiday said a week ago in anticipation of this ramp-up week. He was right. 

“It was a really good practice. High energy. Probably harder than any training camp practice we had,” Al Horford said after the team’s first session back. “Just a lot of pace, it was very productive.”

The Celtics' first practice back lasted hours, with a heavy focus on cardio and getting physically ready. 

“We had some full court, no dribbling for two minutes, three minutes, something like that,” Holiday said. “That was one of the first drills we did, and I don't think we expected that. A lot of stuff yesterday was definitely to kind of get our wind and kind of learn how to play with each other without necessarily dribbling the ball."

Wednesday still brought some physical challenges, but the focus shifted to more of the mental challenge.

“Today just continuing to get better on our execution, our if/then scenarios and reads,” Joe Mazzulla said. “So by the end of today we just wanted to be a better team, a smarter team, and just keep working at that. So it wasn’t as competitive as it was mentally competitive.”

There are plenty of criticisms of the Celtics, but slacking physically isn’t one of them. They will get their legs under them at some point either before the first game of the playoffs or sometime during the opening series. And maybe it will be a challenge for them to keep their cardio up throughout the playoffs if they're handling their business early and getting a lot of downtime. It would be a nice problem to have, and it’ll only be possible if they meet the mental challenges. 

“Execution is important all year, but especially in the playoffs,” Derrick White said. “The game’s a little slower, it’s a little closer, so we should be able to execute each time down the court on both sides of the court is more important, per se, than the regular season. Just having that execution, the right mindset, so that's what we’re focused on.” 

Just like everything, there's a wrinkle to this as well. Boston can work on their mentality and focus, figuring out if/then scenarios and end-of-game possibilities. But against whom? Right now they're preparing for an opponent who won’t be revealed until Friday evening. 

“I think for us, now it’s like a two-part process type thing. You first focus on yourselves,” Horford said. “Normally in the past, you already know who you’re playing and kind of get set, but now it’s like, it was all about us executing and working on our stuff, and then just waiting. Just waiting and waiting to play out and once it gets to Friday, Saturday then we’ll go from there.”

The competition will get narrowed down tonight, with the winner of the Sixers-Heat game going to New York for Game 1 on Saturday. The loser will play the winner of Hawks-Bulls for the right to come to Boston. It might seem like a hindrance to give the top seed less than two days notice of who their opponent will be, but Mazzulla is unbothered. 

“I don’t really care,” he said. “Get ready for Sunday.”

LEARNING FROM THE PAST

Mazzulla has spent a lot of time looking at championship runs of the past to see if he can find a common thread. What he found is that there really isn’t one. 

“There's been teams that have gone down, there's been teams that have only lost a couple of games,” he said. “End of the day, you just can't have an expectation that it’s going to go a certain way. It takes what it takes. There are other teams trying to win a championship, too.”

People tend to lose sight of the other team. When a team builds a lead, they're supposed to keep it … unless it's your favorite team that is down, then that team is supposed to come back. What Mazzulla wants is for everyone, his players especially, to not get caught up in that mentality. Boston is the top seed, winner of 64 games, and is expected to be a meat grinder while the opponents are cubed chuck. Maybe it does go that way, but also, maybe it doesn’t. 

“You have to have a respect for your opponent, you have to have a mental toughness, to withstand things,” Mazzulla said. “There’s a lot of things that go on within a series. So the most important thing is maintaining that mental toughness, maintaining discipline towards what we do, and then get rid of any expectation of how we think a series is gonna go.” 

What Mazzulla doesn’t want is for his team to drop a game and get flustered because it wasn’t “supposed” to happen. Looking at the past is, he hopes, a reminder that every team faces the unexpected in May and June. It’s the teams that get past it that win. 

“I think (the playoffs are) so unpredictable, but it’s really, for us, it’s really trying to stay in the moment and really take advantage of every opportunity, every situation,” Horford said Tuesday. “I was really happy with our group today with practice, with the focus level, attention to detail. Guys really trying to do it right and us holding each other accountable. I thought that was really good to see and just kind of taking it from there. It’s such a long road but nothing’s guaranteed and we have to kind of take a step at a time.”

JAYSON TATUM, JRUE HOLIDAY JOIN TEAM USA

The official Olympic roster was announced by Team USA Basketball, and it includes Tatum and Holiday. The full roster also includes LeBron James, Steph Curry, Anthony Davis, Kevin Durant, Joel Embiid, Kawhi Leonard, Devin Booker, Anthony Edwards, Bam Adebayo, and Tyrese Haliburton. 

Team USA Managing Director Grant Hill made personal appearances to give everyone their jerseys, including in Boston. 

“It was a surprise,” Tatum said. “Sitting on the couch watching TV and the doorbell rang and it was Grant Hill. So I definitely was not expecting that.” 

Holiday, not a fan of surprises, said “it’s pretty random. I didn’t see that coming. I thought my wife was better than that. She usually warns me or something but she didn’t warn me. It was cool. It was cool to see. Obviously he just game to give me my jersey and ask me to be on the national team and just congratulate me. Just really excited.” 

Team USA training camp begins July 6 in Las Vegas. They’ll play an exhibition against Canada on July 10 and then head out for an international training window that begins when the USA hosts Australia and Serbia on July 15 and 17, respectively, at Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi. 

The USA Basketball Showcase continues at London’s O2 Arena when the USA men take on the national teams of South Sudan on July 20 and Germany on July 22. All of those games will either be on FS1 or Fox. 

Olympic group play begins July 28 vs. Serbia, followed by a game vs. South Sudan on July 31, and against a qualifier to be determined on August 3. 

BLAKE GRIFFIN RETIRES

Griffin announced his official retirement on Tuesday, catching his former team by surprise. 

“Oh, he did? Man, great teammate. Everybody here, we love Blake,” Horford said. “There's like a long hope that maybe he was going to be around in some way. Just a lot of good memories with him. The year that he was here, he made it enjoyable for me.” 

Griffin’s signing last season came as a little bit of a surprise, but he made an impact on the team. He played 41 games, starting 16, and leading the team with 15 charges drawn. 

“I really grew to have a level of respect for him,” Mazzulla said. “When we decided to kind of go away from him, he came in and pulled me aside and said, 'Hey, what can I do to get back? What can I do to get better?' So for a guy of his stature and of his resume and success, his longevity of a career, to come to a first-time coach and ask that, just said a lot about who he was. I think from that point on, he kind of took control of the temperature in the locker room. So that was a moment I'll never forget and I'm really grateful I got to be around him.”

There was always some lingering chatter about giving him a spot on this year’s team, but that never materialized. But it says a lot about Griffin that he made the impact on this team that he did in just one season. 

“It was just fun to come into work with him every day and getting to talk to him and getting to know him,” Horford said. “Some of the things off the court, and him as a person. Just a great guy. Definitely Hall of Fame player with everything he's accomplished. I'll make sure that I reach out to him. At some point, we'll celebrate because he had an unbelievable career."