BOSTON, MA — Closing out his first regular season as head coach, Joe Mazzulla’s Celtics are primed for a deep playoff run, and expectations are undoubtedly at an all-time high as Boston is favored to make its second consecutive trip to the NBA Finals.
As the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference, the Celtics will be taking on either the Miami Heat or Atlanta Hawks, depending on which team wins its play-in tournament game on Tuesday. Ahead of Boston’s regular-season finale against the Hawks on Sunday, Celtics president of basketball operations Brad Stevens elected to address the media, commending Mazzulla for his coaching style and a successful season.
“He’s been consistent in his own approach,” Stevens said Sunday before tip-off. “Win/lose; he comes back, and he works the next day, and he wants to grow — he wants to improve. He demands that of the team. I think he does a good job of picking what the emphasis needs to be in the big picture and also in those small moments.”
After winning three of their first four games following the All-Star break, the Celtics stumbled, losing three consecutive games amidst a six-game road trip. Forfeting the No. 1 seed to the Milwaukee Bucks, the Celtics eventually turned things around, winning seven of their last nine games heading into Sunday’s matinee.
“We struggled out of the gate after the All-Star break. We could have limped in, but I thought we did a much better job in the past couple of weeks,” Stevens added. “He’s been very consistent regardless of whether we’ve lost three in a row or won five in a row the whole year.”
Consistency is critical for Brad, who revealed he keeps in touch with Mazzulla daily but that his trust in the rookie NBA head coach hasn’t wavered.
“Joe’s a strength. He’s done a really good job,” Stevens said. “I understand because he’s new; the easiest thing to do is nitpick him. But he’s done a really good job. I trust the staff, and they’ve all done a good job, and I think our players would all second that.”
One Celtics player everyone will have their eyes on at the start of the postseason is Jaylen Brown. He missed both of Boston’s final regular-season games against the Toronto Raptors on Friday and Sunday’s matchup against the Hawks due to a laceration on his right hand suffered from a broken vase Jaylen picked up while gardening. He had to get five stitches.
“I think he’ll be practicing by the middle to the end of the week and be fine,” Stevens said on Jaylen’s prognosis. “So, we’re OK.”
As for Brown’s chances of making All-NBA this year, Brad believes Jaylen’s worthy of the honor.
“I think Jayson and Jaylen should be on the All-NBA team,” Stevens said. “What they’ve done throughout this year… and as you watch the trajectory of the year, he’s (Jaylen) really played his best basketball, I think, in the last couple of months. And he was an obvious All-Star right out of the gate.”
Jaylen’s production transcends to both ends of the floor, which the Celtics’ president of basketball operations believes carried a heavy burden on the All-Star forward.
“I think he’s doing a great job of obviously scoring the ball, scoring when we need it, but we ask him to do a lot defensively, and we ask him, along with Jayson, to read a lot of pretty intense coverages with extra bodies flying at him, with extra bodies shifted over to him,” Stevens said. “We’re unique because we have those two guys that are just amazing young players, and they really accentuate our role players, but we also have a group of role players that really accentuate them. So, they deserve to be on that team.”
