Heading into the 2024 NBA All-Star break, the Boston Celtics had been rolling. A 50-point win over the Brooklyn Nets marked their sixth in a row. However Joe Mazzulla wasn’t prepared for a break. The truth is, he was vehemently towards it.
“I hate breaks,” Mazzulla stated. “I want there wasn’t even halftime.”
Quick-forward a couple of months, and the Celtics are coping with extra breaks than ever. 5-game sequence towards the Miami Warmth and Cleveland Cavaliers had been adopted by a sweep of the Indiana Pacers within the Japanese Convention Finals. Resulting from their dominance, they’ve to attend over every week earlier than taking over the Dallas Mavericks within the NBA Finals.
Boston’s spectacular run via the playoffs has come to a screeching halt on the pinnacles of its successes. Every time they’re using the excessive of a sequence win, they’ve been compelled to take a seat idly by and wait for his or her subsequent opponent.
However the Celtics are doing extra than simply ready.
“Something will be good or unhealthy for you, relying on how you utilize it,” Mazzulla stated. “Time might be good, it might be unhealthy. Every little thing goes into how you utilize it, the way you weaponize it. So, we’re weaponizing our time proper now.”
Bodily, the Celtics will observe. Gamers will undergo their regular exercises, and the coaches will assist them ramp up forward of the Finals. However there’s additionally an important psychological aspect to the break.
“Simply stress-free. Getting out of the struggle. Letting your emotional [and] your psychological guard down. You simply obtained to maintain these issues up,” Mazzulla stated. “So, you create havoc in observe, you simply stress the main points, and also you overwork them within the movie room, and also you simply do all the pieces you possibly can to verify the fellows keep within the struggle.”
Photograph By Matt Stone/Boston Herald
Concurrently, the gamers are able to staying locked in on their very own.
“I belief these guys,” stated Mazzulla. “They’re professionals. They’ve finished so much. So, I don’t actually should do a lot due to who they’re.”
In lower than every week, the Celtics might be enjoying within the largest video games of the season. That is all the pieces they’ve labored for all 12 months. They’re on the entrance doorstep. However they will’t play the video games till the video games arrive.
The pure anxiousness of ready has set in, and Boston is extra keen now than ever to get on the courtroom and compete.
“Simply understanding the second that we’re in. Clearly, having a few days or 9 days off is nice to your physique and for everyone to get wholesome, however we’re within the NBA Finals, and we’re additionally anxious and excited to play,” stated Jayson Tatum.
“I want it did begin a bit of bit earlier so we are able to get after it. A whole lot of guys have been right here earlier than, so we perceive the magnitude of the second. Staying sharp, staying recent, staying prepared.”
All season, the Celtics have handled each recreation the identical. Their simplification course of has allowed them to remain within the second, focusing solely on the duty at hand. Their robot-like dominance of the common season and playoffs depends upon that mindset.
So, because the ready recreation persists, the Celtics are counting on all the pieces that has gotten them thus far. As a result of as soon as the video games restart, they’re the identical issues that can assist them run via the end line.
“This [break] is an extended one, however I believe simply the stuff that we did within the earlier rounds undoubtedly will assist us simply to mentally put together, and we type of know what to do with the day without work,” stated Derrick White. “Coaches have finished a very good job of specializing in what we have to concentrate on, and we’re on the market simply competing and making an attempt to have that proper mindset each day.
“So, we talked all 12 months about not skipping steps, and it’s no completely different now.”
