Joe Mazzulla Explains Celtics Loss vs Thunder and Sitting Holiday | Practice Interview

Joe Mazzulla Explains Celtics Loss vs Thunder and Sitting Holiday | Practice Interview

Been able to practice today any injuries no we’re good to go how are you managing with the five games and 7day stretch coming up like in the middle of January here as busy month how do you is a game by game thing or do you kind of map out

How you kind of want things to go uh I mean you try to map it out a little bit but I think it’s a game by game just trying to at the end of the day it’s about you know keeping our guys healthy and and winning basketball games and you

Know we’ve done a good job uh last month I think we had a tough stretch and I thought we handled it pretty well and uh so it’s twofold that was important uh but so it’s winning you have that like January is always a tough season a t tough month in season

Uh how do you maintain that mentality especially when you’re now ping pong Home Road Home Road so much uh I think the first thing is acknowledge it uh so we have the calendar up and we we know exactly what the schedule like we know it’s going to be hard we’re playing a

Lot of good teams and uh it’s going to be a hard month second pieces is to not have expectation towards it uh whatever it is uh however we handle it it’s what we needed in order to grow um you know for our our mindset towards the end of

The season and uh it’ll be tough challenges for him so I think we just Embrace The Challenge and uh just not have the expectation that it’s going to go well it’s going to go poorly just manage him and play hard I think the biggest thing is like we just got to be

Tough-minded um toughness is physical and mental and uh that’s the most important thing Joe what do you remember about when you guys trade St kind of your reaction and just kind of imagining what it would be like to use in this offense and how is that kind of played out you

Know this was my reaction and it’s G very well and for him fitting in as a teamate I know you’ve talked about getting used to the screening a little bit it’s for the offense how is he kind of worked at that day so I think you’re starting to see

Right like what our uh identity looks like with him on both sides of the ball when you take a look at the OKC game uh changing up his matchup a couple times and just getting used to our defensive system guarding different guys whether it’s uh a giddy whether it’s a homr

Whether it’s uh somebody else so uh we’ve built an identity of our bigs being able to do that over time and um you know he he brings his own defensive versatility so I think it’s just continuing to get comfortable and growing his versatility uh and making our defense better and on the offensive

End I thought he showed some good signs I think uh guys are really starting to empower him especially versus switching in zone and so OKC went out of the Zone in the first half because of his ability to catch it in the middle and uh when he’s played I felt like our switching

Has been uh better organized and more uh attacking uh you know because of his ability to post at the nail so we just expect that to grow those two things but uh he’s been great he’s been open-minded to uh you know like mirroring our system

But then we got to do what also helps him on both ends of the ball really all our guys for that matter what else did you see looking back at the uh we gave up a 40-point quarter we were 17 for 29 in the restricted area and 9 for 24 in

The paint not good recipe for Success uh starts with our individual defense I thought uh throughout the game our individual defense waned uh had some breakdowns in our body position getting rejected and uh those are tough guys to guard so there’s going to be breakdowns

And we got to make sure we protect the rim first and then offens defensively you know we have to play with the there’s a couple games this year where it was like that’s the toughness that’s the playoff toughness and um for the most part we met the challenge there

Were some possessions in that game and the Minnesota game really sticks out where it’s like those two are going to be physical tough playoff games playoff physicality and uh we just have to answer that call all the time that that Minnesota game you get go be we here

Home grin in OKC and now you got Walker Kesler who’s predicting very well obviously everybody struggles against good protection but seems like it has significantly impacted you guys how do you get around that got we Yama we did a good job on that one there’s one yeah um look Lopez did a

Good job on that okay 32 now I got to find one more Mitchell Robinson he do a good job on that one 3 three now we yeah it’s got to be one more got one more huh he got hurt that play him three times that’s true there we go 4-3 me but who’s

Keeping score um no I think listen at the end of the day it comes down to just our offense how can we space them how can we attack uh do we make the right Rim reads and I think with our identity of playing faster in transition has

Helped us kind of eliminate some of that uh Rim protection because we’re getting out and and playing in open space getting those easy baskets and I thought we did we’ve gotten really good at that in the last 10 games and we just have to continue that how much do you feel those

Struggles Anthony Davis you are keeping score I always keep score I know that’s life how much do you feel those third quarter struggles depending in transition stem from good shots not going especially around the basket and what needed to improve defensively the last game yeah uh I thought it was more

A transition defense uh I I mean you start the quarter you start the second half off with an uncontested ched homegun three you’re not really you know locked in on what we’re supposed to be doing so I think some of it was like situational we got to be better but I

Think a lot of it was our body position our individual defense whether it was transition or whether it was in the half court Joe are you pleased with the toughness you talked about that earlier you pleased with the progress of your toughness and how do you get gain more

Toughness how do you become a tougher team play tough teams play tough games I am pleased with it I think we’ve to this point if you look at some of the stuff that we’ve been able to accomplish um I thought the Minnesota game you know was

Good for us because it it showed that we’ve played you know really tough games whether it was the Knicks or other teams and we’ve handled it really well we’ve been down and played back to backs with guys being out him so the overall uh toughness mindset of what we’re trying

To accomplish is there uh it’s just there’s going to be a lot more and we just have to be ready to handle that I hate to jump ahead of tomorrow but Indi you’re right no it’s sort of I hate to bother you but really the but um the

Indiana series coming up this weekend obviously you know they just be Milwaukee back to back and they’re a young hungry team I won’t say they play like nothing to lose but you know accepting that challenge in terms of physicality and mental toughness yeah I hate to answer it this way but we play

Utah tomorrow yeah they gave us 100 or they scored 150 points in last game Utah do you think from Utah no that was that was a game last night they played Detroit uh just obviously you know will it’s a Well coached team they have an innate ability

To change the frequency of the game whether it’s playing versus switching or playing with their off ball speed and they have a bunch of hungry guys uh that can really create advantages on the offensive end and they play tough and so uh they haven’t been healthy uh

Throughout the year but when they are they’re a really good team so I expect that Joe is it up to the individual to be tougher can you make your team tougher or is it just have to is it is it just experience I think it’s everyone’s job to create an environment

Of where that’s an expectation and it’s something that you kind of have to go through um but and I think that’s on all of us uh I don’t know if you can make someone do that but you can create an environment to where you’re aware of that and that’s uh the most important

Thing and I think you can there’s always opportunities to build it whether it’s uh through playing tough games whether it’s through our offensive execution uh whether it’s through the defensive stuff that we have to go through so I don’t think it’s one of those things where

It’s like you get it and then you either have it or you don’t I think it’s constantly like you’re going to go through moments of you try to have more moments than not but I think think it’s like oh we got it now doesn’t mean there’s always it’s not guaranteed you

Know it’s a choice that you have to make every day it’s a choice that you have to make all the time and um you know we’ve made that choice more times than that I’m just got to continue doing that in the middle of games when there’s an

Adverse situation a 10 run are you kind of like smiling like you’re doing now to see how you guys respond to that no I think it’s important right I think you have to it’s twofold right I think uh you have to you get to see the why why

Those things happen uh and then you get to see the response right and so you take a look at the Detroit game I thought we responded really well you take a look at the uh Philly game at Philly and the OKC game where we responded really well to those and we

Came up a little short um and so I think to me it’s more about the response I think uh you know those things are going to happen from time to time the character of our team as I said before I always feel like we have a chance when

We’re down 16 in the fourth quarter or we’re down 12 or 3 minutes to go it’s just what’s our response to those right and then it’s learning to try to stay out of those situations as much as you can um with like tough execution on both

Ends of the floor so you went with cre down the stretch in that game what went into that decision and just overall what you’re seen uh I thought Drew’s actually been really good he’s got career highs and a lot of stuff defensive rebounding offensive rebound three-point percentage

Three-point attempts uh did a great job on Kate Cunningham I think he’s playing really well I think the decision to go to that is is says more about what our team is and the the depth that we have and the ability to play uh different personnel and different lineups and uh

Each game is going to present an opportunity to bring something different to the table and I thought pton just brought that full court ball pressure and a little bit of that like different you know toughness for that particular moment um but it just says more of a

Testament to our team and the depth that we have on both ends of the floor thank you Joe thank you

Joe Mazzulla explained the Celtics’ loss vs the Thunder on Thursday at practice after watching the film, talked about why he played Payton Pritchard over Jrue Holiday late in the game and how Boston is working to become a tougher team.

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