BOSTON — As much as Joe Mazzulla appreciated Giannis Antetokounmpo’s recent praise, the Boston Celtics head coach said the credit for his team’s success this season belongs to his players.
“Obviously, he’s a great player,” Mazzulla said when asked about Antetokounmpo’s comments. “But I think my reaction was, like, ‘You can’t do anything unless you have the players to be able to do that.’ And I think that may sound — I say it a lot, but it’s just that simple. I think the greatest gift you can have as a coach, especially in the NBA, is to have a group of players that have a high competitive character, care about winning and want to get better. I think it starts there. And so that kind of was my response to that.”
Advertisement
During a recent interview with the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Antetokounmpo brought up Mazzulla’s coaching this season in response to a question about his uncertain future with the Milwaukee Bucks. Antetokounmpo used Mazzulla’s approach as an example of what he wants after saying everything about his decision will be based on winning and culture.
“Like, you saw I talked with coach Joe Mazzulla,” Antetokounmpo told Lori Nickel of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. “I said, ‘You had so many opportunities to make excuses, but you didn’t.’ And he said, ‘Oh, they’re good players.’ I said, no. It’s about the mentality that you instilled in your place.”
The Celtics were widely expected to experience a significant falloff after losing several of their best players over the offseason, but have continued their winning ways despite missing injured star Jayson Tatum for most of the season. Clearly, the success has caught Antetokounmpo’s attention. Mazzulla said that with all the unknowns the Celtics had entering the season, their mindset began with a focus on what they did know about themselves.
“We had to kind of get to the knowns,” Mazzulla said. “Like, what do we know? We know that JB (Jaylen Brown) is going to lead, he’s going to get better as a player, he’s going to get better as a leader, he’s going to be in position. He thrives in situations like this. When the deck is stacked against you, you’ve got a chip on your shoulder, JB thrives in that. We know that. We know, here are all the players that we have for opening night, what they’ve done for us — Derrick (White), Payton (Pritchard) and Sam (Hauser) have won games for us. We know what (Neemias Queta has) done for us. Jordan (Walsh) has won games for us.
So, we just got to the knowns. We knew (Tatum) was going to do anything he could to get back (from a torn Achilles). We knew that. And so, with all those knowns, it’s like, OK, here’s where we’re at and how we go about this. I think it was just kind of getting on the same page with Jaylen, getting on the same page with the guys that were returning, getting on the same page with where JT was at in the rehab and saying, ‘OK, this is how we have to go about it.’ And it’s a credit to them for, you know, I think sticking to that. And we got a long way to go, but here’s where we’re at.”
Advertisement
With four games left in the regular season, the Celtics own a three-game lead on the Knicks in the loss column for the second seed in the Eastern Conference. In what some expected to be a “gap year,” Boston has played like a championship contender. Now, with Tatum back and thriving, the Celtics have cleared up many of the unknowns Mazzulla saw at the beginning of the season.
Brad Stevens has said all along that he won’t put a ceiling on this group. In a rare press conference Tuesday night, he said his feeling about his team hasn’t changed much despite the success.
a.showcase-link-container {
display: flex;
gap: 20px;
flex-direction: column;
align-items: center;
padding: 20px 0px;
border-top: 1px solid rgba(150, 150, 147, 0.4);
border-bottom: 1px solid rgba(150, 150, 147, 0.4);
text-decoration: none;
color: #121212;
cursor: pointer;
.showcase-link {
font-family: nyt-franklin;
font-size: 14px;
font-style: normal;
font-weight: 700;
line-height: 13.8px;
letter-spacing: 1.1px;
text-transform: uppercase;
}
.showcase-link-image {
border-radius: 8px;
object-fit: cover;
width: 200px;
height: 150px;
margin: 0px;
@media (max-width: 600px) {
width: 120px;
height: 120px;
}
}
.showcase-link-inner-content {
display: flex;
flex-direction: row;
gap: 16px;
width: 100%;
}
.showcase-link-text-content {
display: flex;
flex-direction: column;
gap: 20px;
justify-content: center;
@media (max-width: 600px) {
gap: 8px;
}
}
.showcase-link-title {
font-family: nyt-cheltenham;
font-size: 24px;
font-style: normal;
font-weight: 500;
line-height: 120%; /* 24px */
letter-spacing: 0.01px;
text-overflow: ellipsis;
overflow: hidden;
display: -webkit-box;
-webkit-box-orient: vertical;
-webkit-line-clamp: 3;
@media (max-width: 600px) {
font-size: 16px;
}
}
.showcase-link-excerpt {
font-family: nyt-imperial;
font-size: 16px;
font-style: normal;
font-weight: 400;
line-height: 139%; /* 19.46px */
color: #323232;
text-overflow: ellipsis;
overflow: hidden;
display: -webkit-box;
-webkit-box-orient: vertical;
-webkit-line-clamp: 4;
@media (max-width: 600px) {
font-size: 12px;
line-height: 121%;
}
}
}
.showcase-link-inputs {
.showcase-link-input {
width: 100%;
font-size: 1rem;
background-color: white;
margin-bottom: 12px;
}
.showcase-link-indent {
margin-left: 25px;
}
option {
width: 100%;
}
}
@media (prefers-color-scheme: dark) {
.native-mobile a.showcase-link-container {
background-color: #121212;
color: #f0f0ee;
.showcase-link-excerpt {
color: #c4c4c0;
}
}
}
// Remove all onclicks on imgs for apps to prevent image zoom on click
document.querySelectorAll(‘.showcase-link-image’).forEach((img) => img.removeAttribute(‘onclick’));
“I just know that we can play,” Stevens said. “I’ve seen us rise and meet challenges, and I know that this team’s looking forward to the next one. As you get into this time of year and get into the playoffs, everything’s hard, the other teams are really good, and we’ll see where it all stacks out. But I’m going to continue to not put a ceiling on us.”
Whatever the Celtics’ ceiling is, Tatum returning to such a high level should increase their chances of reaching it.
“Everybody involved with that gets a lot of credit because of the amount of work that everybody put into it,” Stevens said. “Nobody more than Jayson. Close, close second by (trainer) Nick (Sang, who worked closely with Tatum throughout his recovery). It was pretty incredible to watch up close. I got a front-row seat to the whole thing. I wasn’t sitting on the edge of my seat like others were the first time they saw him run up and down the court, playing five-on-five.”