Joe Mazzulla wishes the Celtics blew more leads this season. Do the players agree?

“When he said that, that was so on-point."

Joe Mazzulla and the Celtics managed to overcome another blown lead on Tuesday. (Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)

January 31, 2024

3 minutes to read

Joe Mazzulla didn’t mince words on Monday night.

After a 118-112 win over the Pelicans where Boston had to bounce back from a halftime deficit, Mazzulla praised the adversity his team overcame.

Given the “entitlement” that he believes surrounds this title-chasing roster, Mazzulla almost welcomes the rare nights when his players are dealt a tough hand.

“I just hope it happens 10, 12 more times so we can get rid of the entitlement that we’re always supposed to be winning,” Mazzulla said of dealing with adversity on Monday, as captured by CLNS Media. “I hope we have to blow leads. I hope all that happens. I really do. That’s what I think.

“I think at times we’re just supposed to be winning all the time, and it’s just not the case. We have to stay the course. Sometimes, you can be losing because you’re playing good basketball. It’s just the result isn’t being achieved.”

Mazzulla’s comments painted the picture of a coach trying to sum up the current hurdles facing arguably the best team in the league to a bunch of reporters.

But Jrue Holiday admitted Tuesday that Mazzulla’s wish for more blown leads has indeed been shared in the locker room.

And while such a scenario might sound harsh, especially when wrapped around a perceived sense of “entitlement” surrounding a grouping looking to get over that championship hump, Holiday agreed with Mazzulla’s sentiment.

"We gotta be able to fight through everything… Being able to battle back and win those is huge for us."

Jrue Holiday agrees with Joe Mazzulla that blowing leads can be a good thing because it helps teach lessons pic.twitter.com/kodCEnPLlA
— Celtics on NBC Sports Boston (@NBCSCeltics) January 31, 2024

“It’s a learning experience,” said Holiday. “We’ve gotta be able to be battle-tested. We’ve gotta be able to fight through everything, fight through expectations, fight through being up 20 and then somebody having a great third quarter and then finishing games.

“[If] it feels easy the whole time, then what’s the fun in that? … Again, I don’t like blowing leads like that. But I think being able to battle back and win those is huge for us.”

The Celtics were able to carry out Mazzulla’s command once again on Tuesday night against the Pacers.

Boston managed to outlast Indianapolis, 129-124, on the second leg of its back-to-back home slate. But it wasn’t pretty, with the Pacers rallying back from a 20-point deficit and taking a brief third-quarter lead before the Celtics clamped down in crunch time.

“You said yesterday that you wanted to blow more leads,” one reporter asked postgame on Tuesday.

“And we did,” Mazzulla interjected. “That’s what I wanted, yes.”

Boston’s recent trend of relinquishing comfortable leads could prove costly when the stakes are raised this spring.

But Mazzulla’s comments do hold some validity, especially if the growing pains felt during the regular season give Boston the experience needed to avoid similar scenarios manifesting in the playoffs.

Count Kristaps Porzingis as another Celtics star who welcomed Mazzulla’s candid comments on Monday.

“When he said that, that was so on-point,” said Porzingis. “I couldn’t agree more. We are really good. And we can’t win games without being 100 percent locked in. We can still win games, you know. But that’s not what we’re trying to achieve.

“We want to be the best version of this team that we can be. And that’s why we need to lock in each and every game, each and every quarter, each and every possession as long as we can. And tonight, again, yeah, second half — we didn’t play our best basketball. … It’s tough and ugly to play against them. But we fought and got the win [in] the end. Good job at the end. And again, we can take lessons from this game, for sure.”