Not this team. Not the Brooklyn squad that lost 136-86 to the Boston Celtics on Wednesday. It was March 3 last year when the Celtics trounced the Nets in the first quarter, built up a huge lead, then completely squandered it.
“We were up by 28 in the first half and we lost, and so you just can’t take that stuff for granted,” Mazzulla said. “And so I thought the way we played from beginning to end kind of showed that.”
Winning by 50 is a decent way to show you’re locked in. And as Mazzulla won his 100th game as head coach, that blowout brought a sense of closure to his first evolution as an NBA coach.
Last year’s loss to Brooklyn has been taking up real estate in Mazzulla’s mind. Whenever he expounds on his offensive philosophy, he mentions that game. He tells the tale of how the Celtics were racking up layups, making life look easy as they carved open a massive lead. But Mazzulla has long believed in the value not just of making shots, but the shot margin itself.
Can you maximize your potential efficiency enough to offset your opponent’s hot streak by launching drastically more 3s? Brooklyn took 15 more shots from deep that night, ended up hitting five more 3s and seven more free throws, and then somehow won a game in which it was blown out.
This year’s Nets squad won’t be emulating that, but that black and white jersey will always remind him of the time his theories played out in real life.
Mazzulla is always looking through the opposite end of the lens. He tries hard to see things for the opposite of how they appear to understand how to control them. Losing can breed winning if you channel that frustration properly.
Winning can lead to losing if complacency takes over.
“Winning is just as dangerous as losing if you don’t handle it the right way,” Mazzulla said.
Cruise control will get you lapped in the pros. There are no off nights. Not even a 50-point win is proverbial PTO. Vacation doesn’t start until your Gulfstream takes off for Punta Cana — or your delayed Spirit Airlines flight to Daytona Beach starts boarding.
And that’s why Mazzulla has long treated blowout wins like arduous battles and close losses like a process W. He follows a line of defense-first Celtics coaches and has tried to reframe almost everything, even on offense, as part of the defense.
“When I first got here, obviously, I was with Ime (Udoka), Will (Hardy) probably mostly, but I remember them telling me, like, you need to know anything with the defense, Joe is your guy,” Derrick White said. “So like, that’s my first introduction to Joe. And then obviously, him being head coach … it’s been great just building that relationship with him on the court and off the court. And great guy, great coach, and I just love playing for him.”
But playing for him isn’t just easy. This Celtics team sitting high atop the league at the All-Star break at 43-12 isn’t just a parade of joy. It’s a delicious omelet full of cracked eggs.
“He just does things a little differently. He likes the uncomfortable probably a little bit more than other people like the uncomfortable,” White said. “But I mean, that’s just the cool thing about him. Like, that’s just the way he’s wired and, yeah, different is a good way to explain him.”
Different is working. Last year, it was hard for Mazzulla to insert his full self into an already toxic situation with Udoka’s departure. But over the offseason, as Brad Stevens overhauled the roster, a clean slate gave him the room to be his true self.
“It really starts with the players and I always tell them, I can’t be who I am if they don’t let me and I appreciate that,” Mazzulla said. “That’s a gift in coaching, you can always be in a situation where you don’t have empowerment, or you don’t have guys that allow you to be yourself. It’s an important gift that the players give me, and they give it to each other.”
One clear distinction between Mazzulla and his predecessors is the frivolous nature of how he approaches what should be moments of tension. When the Celtics lose, Mazzulla often charges into his press conferences hyped up.
When the team is getting tight, he has cracked jokes in the huddle. When Jayson Tatum and White rocked headbands just for the hell of it Wednesday, he was all for the random silliness.
“Sometimes fun can be looked at as a distraction, but I think the ability to have fun and build togetherness and compete at a high, high level is important for these guys,” Mazzulla said. “So it builds a level of connection. But regardless if those guys wear headbands or not, they’re going to compete every night.”
For the record, Mazzulla won’t be rocking a headband on the sidelines.
“No, but that makes me think about how each coaching realm is different,” he said. “How like the baseball managers wear the jerseys and then hockey wears suits. Football you get to wear hats. Like I’d like to wear a hat and a hoodie on the sideline, but apparently that’s, like, not allowed for whatever reason.”
If only he could pull that off, as it would add to the always irreverent mystique that’s made him such an enigmatic figure.
“I think just seeing how people view him maybe from the outside a little bit, I think he’s very underrated,” Kristaps Porziņģis said. “People don’t appreciate who he is and how he coaches because he’s very young. You can always blame it on him and stuff like that. But he’s a very underrated coach. Very underrated and different.”
Porziņģis pointed out that the Celtics’ bevy of talent could make it easy to absolve Mazzulla of credit for building this team. But the demeanor, the principles, the steadiness, it all starts with him.
“Of course coming in I understood we’re a championship-caliber team and what is expected is to win or the goal is to win,” Porziņģis said. “And coming here, there are things that are being done differently and on a much higher standard than on other teams that I’ve been on. And I think from the top down it’s just a really high-level organization.”
They’ve somehow managed to stay relatively healthy and perform with a level of consistency they haven’t exhibited in the Mazzulla era. Not getting too high or low in moments of triumph and failure has been the key ingredient.
But they have to sprinkle it with a pinch of fun to make sure being monstrous doesn’t get monotonous.
“Obviously, there’s going to be ups and downs and you’re playing well, you’re making shots, and that’s easy to have fun,” White said. “But when times are bad and you’re missing shots or whatever it might be, still having fun and finding the joy in the game, I think that’s really important.”
Porziņģis came to Boston to be a part of something substantial and real. He was ready to keep his head down, be serious, and just focus on winning. But he’s having too much fun to walk around with a scowl.
