BOSTON — Payton Pritchard turned on the West playoffs like he normally would while the Celtics enjoyed several days off last week awaiting their opponent between the second round and the conference finals. Instead of casually watching the game, he found himself analyzing it — a habit the Celtics have carried into this season under Joe Mazzulla’s tenure. Pritchard did this work on his own, eyeing the things Mazzulla wanted Boston to learn from.
“Easy. If a team goes on a run, how bad of a run is it? Can we regroup and make it a 6-0 run, or are we gonna turn it into a 15-0 run. I watched the game last night, the Thunder-Dallas,” Pritchard said. “Dallas ended up winning, but at the end of the half, OKC went on a big run. Right? For us, it’s mentally being able to regroup and not let them go on a 10-0 run to end the half, to end the quarter. Those are big momentum runs. (We watch for) those little things like that.”
Boston has continued to integrate film from around the league into its team video sessions this week and all season. For Mazzulla, it provided an opportunity for him and his coaching staff to pull inspiration from rivals who might approach situations differently from Boston.
For the players, it continued a virtue Jaylen Brown stressed throughout the year to become the smartest team as much as the most talented roster. Boston would begin film sessions watching how teams start and finish quarters and halves to teach how that can flow into how games end. Often, he said, better play earlier in games can prevent crunch time losses where many lamented over what went wrong at the end instead of at the beginning.
Yet when games did draw close in the final minutes, Mazzulla also learned from the plays, timeout usage and two-for-one management other teams employed. That became increasingly useful lately in the playoffs, where the Celtics have only played in one crunch time game that didn’t go down to the final possessions. Boston’s last clutch opportunity before Game 4 against Cleveland came one month earlier on Apr. 5 versus Sacramento.
That’s a solution Mazzulla often points out, generating a run in the minutes leading up to the buzzer and pulling away before it’s time to draw up a final play. That last-second finish will come eventually, and the Celtics’ productivity in those spots have called for more creativity. Mazzulla recently noted drawing inspiration from finishes out west.
“It could be a number of things (we look at),” Mazzulla said. “How (coaches) use their challenges, play calls, coverages defensively, who uses two-for-ones, who doesn’t use them. What’re the things that go into winning a close game? … As important as the last two minutes are … the first 40 minutes are just as important … so when you see a close game, it’s also fun going to the beginning and end of quarters and seeing what got to that point.”
Along with different on-court drills, like full court sets without dribbling for 10 minutes last month, Jrue Holiday came to know Mazzulla in their first year together by the environment he created, which he deemed “controlled madness.” He even called Mazzulla “crazy,” but preferred it to a more boring head coach. The attention to detail required to play for him took some adjustment, with Mazzulla’s teaching sessions often feeling like a classroom lesson. Holiday would sometimes ask him to slow down or repeat points as they rattled through film.
Al Horford praised Mazzulla for that same reason, successfully forcing the Celtics’ players to think the game at a higher level than previously. That led to Boston’s relatively straightforward approach on the floor this year, identifying mismatches, attacking them until an opponent adjusts, then identifying the new answer to that team’s adjustment.
“Once you see them more and more, you get to know them more,” Holiday said. “The things they like to do, pick up tendencies and see little things here and there. It’s been good to watch. This is kind of the first time (in my career) I’ve been able to sit back in each series and watch who we’re gonna play next … it’s been good to watch the teams and honestly watch good basketball.”
“Everybody knows what teams like to do on the court, offensively and defensively, but sometimes (we watch) individual games, if it’s Tyrese Haliburton, if it’s Jalen Brunson, what they like to do. You see how they come off a screen and you lock into that detail. You see them do it 3-4 times, you might see a pattern. I would say stuff like that you look out for. Sometimes, maybe you don’t. Sometimes you just like watching basketball.”
Derrick White had his son Hendrix’ birthday party during the Game 7s on Sunday, trying to watch them at a glance. Boston has embraced significant time off going into each series, a product of their one-seed status and wrapping up the first two rounds in five games. White doesn’t have a preference between rest and rhythm, Jaylen Brown saw benefits to both, but as the NBA field grew more injured and Kristaps Porzingis fell in the first round with a calf strain, Boston’s players utilized the time off.
That didn’t matter to Mazzulla, who’s tried to emphasize an internal focus anyway. He kept his answers short addressing New York and Indiana before the Pacers’ victory, seeing more of a benefit in stressing what generally goes into winning games rather than trying to play to a specific opponent’s strengths or weaknesses.
The time to discuss those came on Monday, with scouts for potential opponents already prepared by assistant coaches like Phil Pressey and Jermaine Bucknor. Mazzulla remembered his days doing that job, preparing a 2021 Celtics-Heat report before Boston and Miami lost in round one, but parallels often exist between various matchups — the importance of rebounding, getting to the free throw line and taking available shots to manage the game offensively while limiting turnovers.
Porzingis has stayed engaged in the sessions, too, standing by in huddles and film sessions while giving his input. It’s all amounted to Boston feeling like a mentally stronger team that can withstand losses, runs and missed shots better than it had in the past.
“Teams are gonna get hot,” Brown said Monday. “You gotta navigate that, don’t overreact to it … it happens. You just now can’t let it snowball. You can’t let it happen again. You can’t let it happen multiple times. Obviously, if it does, it’s gonna be out there if a team shoots well or if the Celtics lose, you just gotta stay even-keeled … teams still gotta beat you in four out of seven … being able to stay consistent … if you allow the pressure to get to you, the tension builds, you hear the crowd go aww, every time you miss. I think that just builds up and it gives a team momentum. You just gotta navigate your emotions and take it one possession at a time. I feel like you’ll always have a chance to win if you don’t get caught up in the emotion of the game … crowd … media or whatever it is.”
