It will come as no surprise to anyone who watched him during it, but Joe Mazzulla loved the Celtics’ championship parade through the streets of Boston. Loved it.
The weeks that followed? Not so much.
“I mean, I wouldn’t say I enjoyed the offseason,” Mazzulla deadpanned Tuesday during Celtics media day. “I enjoyed the parade. I thought the parade was a rather intense experience, which I loved.”
But after disembarking from his duck boat, Boston’s head coach didn’t spend much time celebrating his team’s title. In fact, he quickly tried to put it out of his mind, leaving the wildly successful 2023-24 season behind to ensure it didn’t distract him from the new task at hand.
That task, of course, is becoming the first team since 2018 to repeat as NBA champions.
“I think attachment was something that you have to be aware of, right?” Mazzulla said. “Like, I think one of the challenges of this offseason was detaching from the past and having an understanding of, if you’re attached to a success or a failure for too long, that can be really dangerous. And the world tries to keep you attached to the past. The world tries to keep you attached to your latest success or your latest failure. And that’s where people get stuck where they’re in. …
“So how can we detach from that with the understanding of taking the things, the DNA of the things that we need to do to try to go after greatness again?”
That’s the balance the Celtics will need to strike this season: leaning on their championship experience while also fighting off the complacency that comes with winning. Maintaining the necessary motivation now that they’re the team at the top, not the one trying to get there.
“I think the important thing is being proud of what we did last season,” Jayson Tatum said. “Last year was amazing. We were an incredible team and we made history. This year, not really feeling like we have to defend the title, but we’re trying to go win it.
“We had a target on our back the last couple of years. Nothing has changed in that aspect. If anything, we know how great it felt to win and what it took, and we’re trying to go win again. Not necessarily defend it, but just like anybody else, we want to go win a championship.”
Tatum lost in the Eastern Conference finals or NBA Finals in five of his first seven seasons. Running mate Jaylen Brown did so in six of his first eight. They’re now champions — a prerequisite for true greatness, especially for a franchise like the Celtics.
But, Tatum said, “It was never just about trying to win one.”
“Now you get to at least be in the same room with the other Celtics great teams, great players,” he said. “All the guys I looked up to growing up won at least one championship. Now it’s just a conversation of, how great are you trying to be? What room or what tier are you trying to be mentioned in when it’s all said and done? And understanding the window you have to maximize that time.
“It does feel different being up here as a champion and knowing what it takes and wanting to be on the top of the mountain as many times as you can.”
In pursuit of a second straight title, the Celtics retained nearly their entire championship-winning roster this offseason, including every member of Mazzulla’s playoff rotation. They’ll be tested early without injured center Kristaps Porzingis, who’s targeting a December return from leg surgery, but should have the depth to survive without him in the short term.
Boston went 31-6 in games Porzingis missed last season, including wins in 10 of 12 playoff contests. His projected replacements (Al Horford, Luke Kornet, Xavier Tillman and Neemias Queta) all were on the roster in 2023-24.
“It’s kind of weird, actually, having some stability,” Brown said, “because over the last couple of years, we have had coaches change, coaches leave in the middle of the season, trades, players in and out. But nobody mentions that when you when you lose. So it’s good to hear it as an excuse now when you win that we have some stability. But it definitely feels a little bit different.
“But I think it’d be good for us, you know, continue to build off the chemistry that we already have, and just to kind of take some leaps forward. Obviously, KP is big for us, so we’re gonna have to carry the load a little bit more, but we’ll figure it out.”
Brown acknowledged that he feels different now that he’s finally won a championship after years of near-miss “heartbreak.” Tatum said the same.
Mazzulla did not. To him, there’s “zero difference” between the start of this Celtics training camp and where his mindset was at the start of last season.
“At the end of the day, whether we won or lost, if we’re standing up here at this point, the goal is to win,” Mazzulla said. “If we would have lost last year, our goal would be to win a championship this year. So I think just clearly stating we want to win a championship every single year. That’s the goal, that’s the standard, that’s the expectation.
“So what happened in the past really doesn’t change when we step foot in the building on this day. It’s to win a championship. That’s always going to be the goal.”
