The Boston Celtics earned a huge win over the Miami Heat on Monday night, bouncing back from a tough loss against the Cleveland Cavaliers on Sunday. Boston was without Kristaps Porzingis, Jrue Holiday, Al Horford, and Sam Hauser for their game against Miami, yet they still pulled off a dominant 108-89 victory.
Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown were very inefficient, so it was left up to the rest of Boston’s supporting cast to get the job done on Monday night, and they delivered. Led by Payton Pritchard’s 25 points off the bench (and Brown’s rocky 29 points), the Celtics smothered Miami.
Everyone except for Jaden Springer and JD Davison got rotation minutes, and it all gelled together well.
Perhaps that’s because Joe Mazzulla doesn’t let the guys know if they are playing or not before the game.
By not telling the guys if they are going to play or not, Mazzulla is forcing them to treat everyday as if it’s important.
“I just feel like if you give a guy an idea if he’s going to or not going to [play], it changes his preparation on a daily basis,” Mazzulla said. “And so I just want our guys to come into the arena every day thinking that their process is important towards winning. And they have to be ready to go, and they got to treat every single day, every single game, as if they’re going to impact winning.
“And so, by not telling them, it allows them to just treat every single day as if it’s the most important day, and they do a great job of embracing that. But it’s important because there’s just a lot of unpredictability over the course of the season. You gotta be ready to go anytime. And if you’re only ready to go because you know you’re gonna play, then that doesn’t really help your process.”
Boston is always ready to play. Every single guy on the roster is ready to roll if their number is called, and evidently, a big part of that is because they don’t know if they are playing or not on a nightly basis.
It’s one of Mazzulla’s many coaching philosophies, and while it may not be his most unique, it’s still a great way for him to get the most out of this Celtics group.
Guys like Drew Peterson stepped up in a big way against the Heat, and he probably had no idea he was going to even get in the game before tip-off.
