Why Joe Mazzulla ‘Loved’ Celtics Being ‘Miserable’ After Unexpected Loss To Heat
From the outside, the Boston Celtics losing 123-104 to the Miami Heat on Wednesday night at TD Garden was rather meaningless.
But not to Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla and company.
While the loss had zero impact on the Celtics in the Eastern Conference standings — they are basically locked into the No. 2 seed — it still wasn’t a good feeling for them to drop a home game to an inferior Heat squad even with Kristaps Porzingis, Al Horford and Jrue Holiday all sitting out.
And Mazzulla was glad to see the loss still sting for his team despite the lowered ramifications of the outcome.
“We’re all pissed,” Mazzulla told reporters, per NBC Sports Boston. “We all hate losing and that was my message was good reminder that losing still sucks. I love the fact that the staff’s miserable, guys were pissed — not happy about it. But we’re going to come back and do it again the next day. I think it’s great.
“Like you said, at the end of the day, it doesn’t have much of an impact, but it still sucks and we’re all miserable right now.”
This is on-brand Mazzulla. It’s tough to imagine the Celtics being in the exact state that Mazzulla described, but he’s just trying to push the right buttons with the playoffs coming later this month.
And with the Celtics trying to repeat as NBA champions, it will be important to keep their edge even with these games not meaning much down the stretch.