BOSTON — Joe Mazzulla has been navigating an opportunity he always wanted but never expected to have this soon.
Along the way in his first season as an NBA head coach, Mazzulla hasn’t strayed too far from what put him in this position in the first place.
“As big as this is, I still think it comes down to the most simple of the details,” Mazzulla said this week. “Just having a plan. Executing that plan.”
That has been Mazzulla’s north star as he has guided the Boston Celtics back from the disorienting preseason jolt of seeing former coach Ime Udoka suspended. Mazzulla did so first on an interim basis, but that label was removed in mid-February.
The Celtics finished second in the Eastern Conference with a 57-25 record that was second best across the NBA in the 2022-23 regular season, and now they’re positioned to make another deep playoff run. The franchise with 17 NBA championships — tied with the rival Los Angeles Lakers for the league record _ came up short in last summer’s title series, losing in six games as the Golden State Warriors earned their fourth crown in the past eight seasons.
Now a Boston core led by NBA All-Star selections Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum views Saturday afternoon’s tipoff of their first-round playoff series with the Atlanta Hawks as the first step toward another shot at an NBA title.
“We’ve essentially been waiting for this moment,” Tatum said. “The group is locked in. The group is focused.”
Having to constantly hear about their shortcomings in the NBA Finals has also kept it top of mind.
“We had the whole summer to talk about it, the whole preseason to answer questions about it. The whole regular season. And now it’s like, ‘We’re back in the playoffs,'” Tatum said. “We get to essentially get another chance at it.”
Most importantly, after being the first player in franchise history to average 30 points in a season, Tatum said he’s not feeling worn down — even though he averaged 36.9 minutes per game this season, which trailed only Pascal Siakim of the Toronto Raptors and Kyrie Irving of the Brooklyn Nets/Dallas Mavericks (both 37.4).
“Physically, I feel good. My body feels great. Energy level,” he said. “So overall I feel pretty good.”
The Hawks finished seventh in the Eastern Conference with a 41-41 record, and they’re coming off a 116-105 win over the Miami Heat to improve to 3-0 all-time in the play-in tournament and lock up the seventh seed for the playoffs. Atlanta fired coach Nate McMillan in late February with the team 29-30 at the All-Star break, won two games under interim coach Joe Prunty, then went 10-11 with new coach Quin Snyder to close the regular season.
The Hawks get most of their offensive production from the backcourt of Trae Young (26.2 points per game) and Dejounte Murray (20.5), augmented by Bogdan Bogdanovic (14.0) off the bench.
Two years ago, Atlanta made a surprising run to the Eastern Conference title round before losing to the Milwaukee Bucks who went on to win the NBA title. The Hawks haven’t been able to build on that success. A year ago, they had to win two games in the play-in tournament just to make the playoffs, then were blown out in the opening round by the Heat.
Boston finished 16 games ahead of Atlanta during the regular season, which could mean another short postseason stay for the Hawks. But Clint Capela, who had 21 rebounds in Tuesday’s win against the Heat, said his team is motivated by all the skeptics.
“They don’t really believe in us,” he said. “We take pride in that. We love it, we enjoy it. It’s OK what you guys think. Let us shows you guys that we have more than what you think. It’s not the regular season anymore. Teams are different. We’re different.”
The enigmatic Hawks hovered around .500 for most of the season, and their maddeningly inconsistent play was apparent after a season-best five-game winning streak ended on Jan. 21.
Since then, Atlanta never climbed more than two games above .500, nor dropped more than one game below the break-even point. Amazingly, they were at .500 after 17 of their last 36 regular-season games.