NBA intensity is raised by a considerable margin from the regular season to the playoffs, and Joe Mazzulla wants the Celtics to embrace the shift in tone.
Although Boston certainly is talented enough to lean on a more finesse brand of basketball, it also has the personnel to bully the opposition in terms of physicality. The Celtics boast one of the bigger and stronger teams in the playoff field and their coach continues to urge the reigning Eastern Conference champions to take advantage of those upper hands.
“(Mazzulla has) been challenging all of us to bring it with the physicality,” Robert Williams told reporters after Sunday’s Game 4 win in Atlanta, per The Boston Globe. “He’s just letting me know, that’s why they pay me.”
Williams definitely answered the bell in the Celtics’ latest win, which gave the East’s No. 2 seed a 3-1 lead in its first-round series against Atlanta. The 25-year-old scored 13 points and pulled down a game-high 15 rebounds, which marked Williams’ first double-double since March 1. Fellow Boston big man Al Horford was the only other player (11) with 10-plus rebounds in Game 4.
If the Celtics continue to fulfill Mazzulla’s physicality request and thrive on the glass, it will only make them a tougher out in these playoffs.
