If Joe Mazzulla gets his way, this year’s team will be the SERVPRO Celtics, because he wants to make like it never happened, happen. If he could, he’d get the Men In Black flash device, dial it back to the 2023 Miami series, and use that as motivation all over again.
The Celtics have been going at it in practice, with Mazzulla challenging them physically and mentally.
“Training camp has been hard … It's exactly what we needed. We did not ease into training camp by no means,” Jaylen Brown said. “Joe Mazzulla is a psycho in a good way. Training camp was not — it was probably one of the tougher training camp the first two days that I probably had in terms of intensity conditioning, level physicality, defensive warrior-type mentality.”
Mazzulla has pulled out a bunch of tricks already, doing things like baton handoffs and baseball drills to hammer home how fundamental failures in other sports have led to losses. He’s forcing the Celtics to look at winning in every way besides putting the ball in the hoop, hoping to spark a focus that puts their championship in the past and keeps their eyes on the road in front of them.
“A lot of new things are being thrown around,” Al Horford said. “What I’ve learned – this is going to be my third season with Joe – is just trusting him. Trusting him and we’re all just letting it see where it goes, and I feel like we usually have. It usually pays off for us, so I’m trusting whatever he tells us to do.”
That trust travels to Abu Dhabi on Monday, changing the scenery and the obligations the team faces ahead of two preseason games against Denver. But it doesn’t change the message.
“Who cares? It’s not really a challenge, you just adjust accordingly,” Mazzulla said. “Throughout a season, you deal with that, as well. You get started a little earlier when you travel. So it’s not much different. It’ll effect what we do in that short space — the day we land, the next day. But as far as the whole, it doesn’t change the curriculum or the things that we have to work or the things that we have to get better at. It just adjusts a couple of the decisions that you make in a short-term period.”
There's no doubt Mazzulla sees this as a good thing for his team. Right away, they're being pulled in an uncomfortable direction, flying 12 hours across eight time zones and being asked to perform on an international stage. Mazzulla has pushed his players to execute while tired all week long, so this fits right into what he’s been looking for.
“There's gonna be days where we’re not at our best at practice and that's gonna happen in games, and we gotta find ways to come out on top when it’s not going our way,” Mazzulla said. “As many environments as we can create, as many situations as we create where we have to grow as a team, I think it’s really important. So, you can’t do that unless the guys do it. They’ve done a great job of kind of setting the tone and I think they’ve competed at a high, high level the first few days.”
But as much as this trip is a challenge that Mazzulla enjoys for his team, it’s also something the team has embraced as a positive experience.
“I feel like a lot of times in training camp and preseason, it's about locking into the team, focusing in on that and staying in one place and kind of going through the grind together,” said Jrue Holiday, who has done this trip before with Milwaukee. “I think that's a really good thing … I think that it builds character. I think it builds for the rest of the season. If it is adversity, we're going to a different place. It was a team that we're going to play against. But also we still want to take this seriously, even though it's going to be another road trip. You can always grow from it."
And there's one more element to this for the Celtics, one that we tend to forget from time to time. Basketball is supposed to be fun, and getting the NBA world’s full attention as the first game, preseason or not, is going to be fun. The world champion Boston Celtics are back on the floor for the first time since they left TD Garden covered in confetti. People are excited to see it. Celtics fans want to see them do it again and NBA fans are excited to see Boston lose. And it all starts on Friday.
That's going to be fun.
“A lot of friends and family will be attending at the game,” Brown said. “It would be fun to go globalize the game and play on that side of the world, so I look forward to it, but also playing against the former Champs, I'm sure it will be exciting to watch. I'm not sure what the rotations or the schedule is going to be, if guys are going to play or not going to play, but I want to play. It’s like one of like extended home for me now, so to be able to play in front of those guys would be fun.”