Following the Celtics’ victory over the Nets in Brooklyn on Tuesday evening, Joe Mazzulla was in one thing of a joking temper. When a reporter requested him a query about Al Horford’s paint touches, Mazzulla used it as a chance to precise one thing that was on his thoughts.
“We talked over the last week or so. We definitely think we need to post (up) more,” Mazzulla mentioned. “I don’t think we’re posting enough.”
Another reporter adopted up and requested why.
“I was joking,” Mazzulla replied. “We’re second in (post up) frequency and first in (post up) efficiency.”
The change represented a transparent response to former Celtics heart and now ESPN analyst Kendrick Perkins, who mentioned earlier this week that he believed the C’s weren’t posting up sufficient regardless of these rankings. It wasn’t the primary time Mazzulla responded in a press convention to a criticism from Perkins. Last month, Perkins made a remark concerning the Celtics coach saying that there are two variations of him, saying, “And you wonder, if you take his brain out and you put it in a bird, the bird is going to start flying backward.”
Days later, Mazzulla answered a question concerning the standing of an injured participant by saying, “I’m a bird brain, you know I can’t do that.”
In his second season, Mazzulla has taken exterior criticism in stride, and even embraces it. He doesn’t thoughts it, is aware of it comes with the territory of his place, and hasn’t run from it. In the case of crucial feedback like ones from Perkins, Mazzulla on Wednesday defined his perspective and the way he handles such conditions.
“I’ve grown to absolutely endear it and love it,” Mazzulla mentioned. “And I believe it’s stunning. And as I mentioned earlier than, if you want for issues to be totally different than what they’re … it comes with the job, it’s the expectation. It doesn’t imply you’ll be able to’t have enjoyable. You simply can’t take your self too critical. You ought to chortle at your self. You must also chortle at different folks. You ought to love your self and love different folks. And it is best to simply have enjoyable when you’re doing it. So that is the duty is dealing with these expectations. You simply need to embrace it.
“I don’t believe in ignoring the noise. I just don’t believe in that because you’re not going to ignore something negative but then wish to get praise. You know what I mean? Everybody lives in this world of, like, I’ll ignore the noise but if someone says something good about you, you should listen to that. You should hear both of it and you should decipher what’s true and then you just kind of move on from there.”
All-Star plans
In his first season as coach final yr, Mazzulla coached the All-Star Game. But he doesn’t have that duty this season. What will he do with the day off? He skated away from giving out any private plans, however there’s some enterprise deliberate.
“So I have a list of 10-12 things that we need to get better at as a team,” he mentioned. “And so I’ll go through the calendar of the games and figure out when those things become thematic, when we need to institute them, and how we can approach whether it’s a practice or a shootaround. Making those themes important to where we’re trying to get to, I’ll definitely plan that. That’s probably about it.”
Mazzulla was requested what he’s giving up for Lent.
“Fifteen minutes of silence,” Mazzulla mentioned. “I try to make sure we’re rooted, grounded, get ready for this tough stretch we have coming up … so I want to make sure we’re ready to go. Have like a training camp, so to speak, before we get ready.”
Mazzulla reiterated what he mentioned final week, that he hates breaks.
“I don’t really understand them,” Mazzulla mentioned. “I think you need a break coming from the break. It’s like, what, why’d you take the first break to begin with?”
Tragedy hits KC
Mazzulla had his ideas with Kansas City, the place a mass taking pictures passed off on Wednesday on the Chiefs’ Super Bowl parade that left one useless and a minimum of 20 wounded.
“Terrible,” Mazzulla mentioned. “It just goes to the point of, you never know what someone’s going through in a situation. And it’s also unfortunate that innocent people have to be in the way of things like that. So it’s disheartening to see, in my opinion. You go to something like that to celebrate, and you end up getting something completely different, you know? It’s just tough because of what people go through on a daily basis and how innocent people are impacted by that, you know?”
Brown sits out
Jaylen Brown sat out Wednesday’s recreation towards the Nets attributable to a proper shoulder contusion, whereas Xavier Tillman (left knee harm administration) and Jaden Springer (proper ankle impingement) must wait to make their Celtics debuts till after the All-Star break. Horford (left massive toe sprain) sat out on the second evening of the back-to-back, as anticipated.
Ben Simmons missed Wednesday’s recreation for the Nets attributable to a left knee effusion.
Source: www.bostonherald.com