The Five Most Interesting Things Said During the Final Two Days of Celtics Preseason

BOSTON — Training camp is officially over. The Boston Celtics held their final two practices at the Auerbach Center on Sunday and Monday before heading out to Detroit for the season opener Tuesday afternoon at 3 p.m. 

“I think at this point, we've transitioned to things that we want to be good at on both sides of the ball into the game,” Joe Mazzulla said. “Now we have to do it over the course of the season, but at the same time, be ready to adapt or adjust to things that the team tells you and the league tells you as the season goes on. So it's a small step, but I like where we are heading into the season.”

The Celtics get thrown into the deep end immediately. They open against the Pistons, then after two days off, they start a three-game-in-four-night stretch beginning with the Knicks. Then in November, they play 12 of 16 games on the road, but only two of those four home games are consecutive, so they’ll be living out of suitcases until December.

Here are the five most interesting things said at the final two preseason practices 

Joe Mazzulla is Excited to Figure Things Out

“I do love this team. I do want to see who we are when it doesn't go our way. So I want to say okay, yeah, I love our team, but what are we going to be after a winning streak, after a losing streak, after you know four games and five nights, all those things. So I love this team, love who we can become, but I also am excited to go through, I would say, the one thing with these guys, I'm excited to go through all the sh*t that the NBA season gives you. I'm excited to lose with this team. I'm excited to win with this team. I'm excited to do all those things to see who we become on the other side of it.”

Mazzulla is often called a mad scientist, and he really embodies both elements of that moniker. He can definitely be crazy, but he also really seems to enjoy the scientific process. 

What happens if they lose? What happens when they win? What if it’s a blowout either way? Mazzulla wants to see it all. 

If this was a cross-country drive, Mazzulla would get excited for the blown tire, the food poisoning at a random rest stop, and the detour that adds a day to the trip. How else can you truly figure out who you truly are? In Mazzulla’s mind, the group that can get through all that stuff and still stay together is the group that can get through anything. 

He’s Clark Griswold and this is the trip to Wally World. Hopefully it’s open when they get there this time.

Mazzulla on Set Starting Lineups

“There's pros and cons to both. If you play one lineup, you don't see what your roster is, and then you get to a certain matchup, and you don't have the habits or the identity that you might have created. If you play a few different lineups, there's maybe one lineup that you don't get the best of. So it's really just a balance. I think at the end of the day, if you can create continuity in a system to where, regardless of who's out there, we can execute, and you build the awareness to the strengths that this lineup has versus the things that we're combating on the opposing lineup.” 

One part of the quote that I didn’t include was him saying “you don’t get to dictate the matchups you play against,” which is very important in today’s NBA. So much of what teams face is matchup based that being married to a specific starting lineup every day is bad news for a team built like the Celtics. 

If the team was constructed differently, maybe it’d be a different story. Some years, the groups are obvious. This year, there is a lot of debate over what the rotation should be. 

As Mazzulla has said before, there are three or four guys you can probably count on as starters for most nights. But on others, it might require somebody different based on the type of defense they want to run. 

Mazzulla’s goal is to get everyone on the same page and keep them there. The big risk with this approach is telling someone his role is changing and then having it not work. That's when the player can say “see, I should have been out there.” That's the stuff that starts to erode a locker room. 

So Mazzulla’s challenge is to create the flexibility he’s looking for while keeping everyone engaged. The good news is that Brad Stevens has given Mazzulla a great group of guys, so their chances of navigating this stuff are good. 

Paul George’s Beautiful Challenge

“It's been a beautiful challenge, as I'll tell [Mazzulla], of exploring how to be. I've been so used to my career of having the ball in my hands and the offense running through me, knowing where my spots will be at. The beautiful thing within Joe's offense is I could be anywhere, and there is no kind of set play. It's kind of reading the game, thinking the game with such a high IQ team. It's been a fun challenge of how can I be myself? How can I find rhythm? How can I play at my pace, my speed, while being in different spots and figuring it out and learning what the defense is giving us, so it's been fun. This is kind of how I always envision playing. So it's just up to me to now try to figure it out.”

Mazzulla tries to pull guys out of their comfort zones to get them to grow their games. For the first time in his career, George walked into camp as a truly supporting player. He has to look at how other guys are playing and figure out how to fit into that, much like stepping onto the stage with an improvisational jazz band and playing the upright bass when you’ve been the lead vocalist your whole life. He has to figure everyone else out so he can understand how he fits in. 

It’s different, and in a way it signals a corner turned for him. I’m very curious to see how this goes for him, especially how it impacts his scoring and shooting. Scorers don’t like being uncomfortable, and his shooting was terrible in the preseason. I want to see if that's connected, and if it is, how long before he pulls out of the funk. 

Derrick White is Excited

“I mean, I don't know if I ever was on a team where I was like, ‘man, I don't like this team.’ So I think it's always, especially at the beginning of the year, like you're just really excited and you kind of see the potential that you have. And so I don't think we're any different from a lot of teams in the NBA like that, and so yeah, I really like this team. I really like what we got going, and we just got to see the build off of it.”

I honestly can’t imagine White not liking someone. He’s the most easy-going guy I’ve seen in an NBA locker room. 

Team chemistry is good right now, but it should be. If it’s not good heading out of training camp, you're looking at a disaster season loading. 

Baylor Scheierman Enjoys the Chaos

"I just think it's a lot more fun to play in that environment than when it's stagnant and you call a play and you're bringing it up. When there's a little chaos, but like a controlled chaos, I think I definitely thrive in that environment."

My favorite part of this answer is that he smiled when he gave it. 

The exchange is at the 2:31 mark, and it shows something I picked up on earlier this preseason. Scheierman is as free a spirit as you’ll find, and it shows up on the court.