BOSTON — Some of head coach Joe Mazzulla’s coaching tactics Saturday night might have seemed miles outside of the box, but they led to a Boston Celtics style Jaylen Brown preferred.
Despite a 109-100 Game 7 loss to the Philadelphia 76ers, Brown felt the Celtics had finally played like themselves after two straight duds in the series.
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“I wish we played that style and trusted that style more, even throughout the playoffs, even through wins and through losses,” Brown said. “Obviously, it’s not always the easiest decision, but I wish. That style for our team was how we empowered the rest of our group, and you saw tonight how everybody came out and they played their tail off. I wish we trusted that more.”
In Game 7, the Celtics used unconventional lineups, including a first unit with three players making the first postseason starts of their careers. They turned to rookie Hugo González, who had been out of the rotation since late in the regular season. They assigned guards and wings to defend Joel Embiid at times, downsized to a tiny lineup with either Baylor Scheierman or Jordan Walsh at center, and went to a zone defense for key stretches of the game.
The Celtics needed to tweak their lineup to some extent after losing Jayson Tatum (left knee stiffness) for the game, but they could have done so far less radically than they did. In some ways, the lineup decision seemed like a reinstatement of everything Mazzulla preached throughout the season. He valued his team’s depth. He demanded that everyone on the roster stay ready at all times. He created an environment in which each player, even those on the end of the bench, knew they could be called on at any time.
If the Celtics went down, Mazzulla’s first-unit choice seemed to declare, they would do it in their own style. Brown, who said they played faster and freer in Game 7, wished only that they had leaned on such a style more throughout the series. Otherwise, he expressed no regrets even after the Celtics let a 3-1 series lead slip away during the first healthy first-round playoff exit of his career.
“This is probably one of my most fun years playing basketball,” Brown said. “It wasn’t always perfect. It wasn’t always analytically (or) aesthetically pleasing, but we won a lot of basketball games, and people could see the grit and the fight that we played with every single night. And tonight was an example of that.
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“We left it all out there. We played five small guys, we played a rookie, we played whatever. And we scrapped all the way to the end, just came up a couple, a few plays short.”
Even if Brown appreciated the way the Celtics competed in Game 7, their season ended with a crash. They needed to reconcile the appreciation of their journey with a loss that arrived all too early.
Following the first day of training camp, Payton Pritchard sat on a bench near the team’s practice court and explained why he wouldn’t lower his personal expectations for this season.
At the time, it would have been easy for Pritchard to doubt the Celtics’ potential. They were coming off what seemed like a disastrous four-month stretch. They had lost Tatum to a torn Achilles while blowing a second-round series against the New York Knicks. Then, in a quest to alleviate second apron concerns, they had lost most of their supporting cast during the offseason. Al Horford, Kristaps Porziņģis, Jrue Holiday and Luke Kornet had all landed on other teams.
Pritchard, like his teammates, had heard the chatter that the Celtics were prepared for a sharp fall.
“It doesn’t bother me,” Pritchard said, “because I’m just used to people putting limitations on myself or my team. It’s just like, we’re not here to care about what other people think we can do. We have to believe what we’re capable of.”
A championship, Pritchard said, would remain the Celtics’ only aim.
“A playoffs? Nobody remembers playoffs,” Pritchard said. “So even if we do accomplish it this year, that’s still the end goal for the next year. This is a buildup regardless. We’re working toward the championship. So this year we’re going after that. The next year we’re going after it. The third year. It never changes.”
Even if the Celtics didn’t win a championship, Pritchard wanted them to move closer to one. Through that lens, it would be impossible to qualify this season as a total failure. Until the first round of the playoffs, Boston did little but answer questions about itself. Brown showed he could step into the No. 1 role. He and the other returnees helped carry over the team’s culture, which could have been lost in the offseason overhaul. From starting center Neemias Queta down to two-way player Ron Harper Jr., who would eventually earn a standard contract, the Celtics built a hard-working and deep supporting cast from players with minimal experience or less. Their spirited, unselfish style helped them win 56 games during the regular season.
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That style also inspired Tatum during his rehab process. One day before his season debut in early March, he thanked people throughout the organization for everything they had done to help him throughout his recovery. During a team meeting, he told his teammates how much motivation their joy and competitive nature gave him to work his way back to the court.
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That energy picked up before training camp even started. Pritchard said the returning Celtics didn’t need to talk about their responsibility to continue the team’s success.
“We just knew what it was,” Pritchard said. “We knew there’s going to be a lot of opportunity and a chance to prove people wrong and prove that you can win still. So you take it in and show what you’re made of.”
The Celtics’ departures were seen as crushing losses to those outside the organization. But to the team’s younger players, such as Scheierman, the roster changes presented opportunities.
“Obviously, they had just won the championship the year before, brought everyone back,” Scheierman said. “So everything was kind of set in stone. And with all the changes, there was going to be opportunity for a lot of guys that wouldn’t have necessarily had a lot of opportunity in the past. And I think that’s really what kind of excited us and motivated us. And I think all of us were really confident in each other’s abilities to be able to go out and impact the game in a positive way and contribute to winning.”
To help establish a direction for the Celtics, Mazzulla had the players read “The Art of War” before the season started. On the court, the Celtics had what several players called their most difficult training camp. According to Scheierman, they jumped from one drill to the next with no time wasted in between.
“There was no walking around,” Scheierman said. “It was all fast-paced. It was all competitive, like, live. Guys playing one-on-one, going to three-on-three, then going to four-on-four, then going to a defensive station where you’ve got to get two stops in a row, just stuff like that. The pace of training camp was just high level.”
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Mazzulla kept his team on edge with some coaching methods he wouldn’t have used on a more experienced roster. During one preseason game, he yanked players every time they gave up a defensive rebound. Early in the season, he made it clear that the role players would have a short leash. He shuffled different players in and out of the starting lineup. He pulled young players from the lineup after game plan mistakes. The Celtics were inexperienced outside of their core, but Mazzulla wouldn’t settle for them playing like it.
The attitude translated to the regular season. The Celtics could have panicked after losing their first three games, but they trusted their new brand of basketball would eventually produce more success. Pritchard said he knew as early as training camp that they would exceed external expectations.
“The tone didn’t need to be set,” Pritchard said. “There’s a culture to this. There’s a way you show up to work every day. So that was already set in stone. That doesn’t change if you go through a losing streak or have a losing season. A culture is a culture year in, year out. So there was nothing to change about that. People knew what their jobs were and they came in and you go to work.”
The younger roster convinced Mazzulla to tweak other aspects of his team’s approach. Behind the scenes, he set up a more educational setting, which Brown called “Celtic University.” The Celtics needed to make sure their younger players were ready for much bigger roles. They hadn’t just lost talent over the offseason, but a sea of basketball IQ.
Over time, Boston’s inexperienced supporting cast proved its promise and readiness. Queta, previously the fourth-string center, showed he could handle a starting role. Scheierman, Walsh, González and Harper gave the Celtics a deep group of wings. Luka Garza, outside of the rotation in Minnesota last season, was briefly dropped from the rotation early in the season but provided solid minutes from the time he received his next chance. Whomever Mazzulla called on seemed to be well-prepared for his opportunity.
That helped make the season a special one for Brown. Late in the regular season, he said the Celtics’ ability to click so quickly after a big offseason overhaul was unique.
“Obviously everybody can have their own take on it and the bar gets moved and you give credit to the front office or give credit to the coaching staff, but from a player standpoint, they’ve got to go out there, a bunch of grown men, a bunch of egos, a bunch of guys from different teams, some have played, some have not, and it just doesn’t happen,” Brown said. “I’m very proud of this group that we’ve been able to come together and find chemistry and the product looks like it looks. It could have looked completely different.”
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After returning in early March, Tatum only brightened the sunshine around the Celtics by quickly reaching a high level of play. He scored 32 points in his 11th game back and recorded a triple-double in his 12th. Boston went 13-3 with him in the lineup during the regular season.
The Celtics were on a joyride until they skidded out.
Despite all the positive developments this season, the Celtics must now face the reality that they have been ousted as heavy series favorites in three of the last four playoffs. Their letdown against Philadelphia brought back bad memories of their losses to the Miami Heat in 2023 and to the New York Knicks last season.
Just like in those series, the Celtics botched opportunities at home. After taking a 63-50 lead early in the third quarter of Game 5 with a chance to close out the series, Boston folded down the stretch, missing its final 14 field goal attempts. The Celtics were then thoroughly beaten in Game 6 on the road before dropping Game 7 at TD Garden.
They believed they were just a play or two from taking control late in the fourth quarter, but couldn’t quite make it happen.
“Obviously, there was a lot to be proud of, and I’ll definitely remember a lot of the great times that we had,” Derrick White said. “But you also remember the bad times, and this moment right here. So it’s going to be a long summer, and we’ve got to get better.”
Most teams that lose in the first round can’t even convince themselves they were capable of contending for a championship, but the Celtics would have had a chance in the Eastern Conference if they had just escaped Saturday. Tatum would have been considered “day to day” moving forward, according to Mazzulla. The emotions in the locker room showed what the Boston players felt about their missed opportunity. White looked devastated while holding his head in his hands. Pritchard appeared just as crushed a few feet away.
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Still, as close as the Celtics were to giving themselves a chance, the series highlighted some concerns they will need to address. Queta, who couldn’t stop picking up fouls, was outclassed during his first significant playoff action. If he is the starting center of the future, he will need to become more reliable in big moments, even against the toughest matchups. Late in the series, it was hard not to think about how much the Celtics missed Horford, who has defended Embiid as well as anybody. White’s shot, which went missing during the regular season, disintegrated further throughout the first round. He rebuilt his jumper after it cost the Celtics in the 2022 NBA Finals, and will now need to do it again.
“I’ve gotta go to the gym this summer,” White said, “and come back better.”
Brown’s decision-making, which has come a long way throughout his career, was balky at times during the series as he finished it with more turnovers than assists. Tatum was the Celtics’ best player for most of the series, but couldn’t quite reach his usual peak as a scorer. His bout with left knee stiffness, which forced him to miss Game 7, was a reminder that he might never be as dependable physically as he was before his torn Achilles. The 2024 championship can never be taken away from Mazzulla, but every other season of his head coaching tenure has now ended in a stunning playoff loss. He said he would balance the disappointment of the early exit with the appreciation of the Celtics’ season.
“I think a lot of times in the world today, it’s an either-or society, but there’s a duality to everything,” Mazzulla said. “The year we won, I felt just as empty as we did when we lost. The duality of going after something bigger than yourself with a group of people is … there’s two sides to every corner, and when you go after greatness, you have to accept the other side of that. Too many times, it’s all about winning, winning, winning, but you have to surrender to the idea of when you’re going after that, you’re going to fail. We’ve failed by not winning, but we stuck to the process of being able to do that. But I think that’s just kind of the duality of how things work. It’s not an either-or thing. It’s both, and you feel both of those things.”
Brown also felt them both.
“It’s hard to reflect on it right now, because it’s so fresh in the moment,” Brown said. “But obviously, this organization is used to playing later into the season, and this is my first time having a first-round exit (when healthy). But this season, what the expectations were, and we came out, and we rose to meet that level of uncertainty with this group. There’s nothing more I could ask for. I had a great time with my teammates. We played hard. Felt like we left it all out there tonight, but we came up short.”