Celtics ‘Don’t Have Time’ To Worry About Damian Lillard, Bucks

The Boston Celtics and Milwaukee Bucks are co-favorites to win the 2024 NBA Finals.

And for good reason.

The Bucks landed the biggest fish of the offseason, acquiring seven-time All-Star guard Damian Lillard to form one of the best one-two punches in the league with Giannis Antetokounmpo. That opened things up for the Celtics, who then swung a trade for Jrue Holiday — the man Lillard replaced in Milwaukee.

The Eastern Conference arms race has been fun to watch from the outside but isn’t something Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla is too worried about.

“He’s a great player. They’re a great team. We don’t have time to worry about that,” Mazzulla told J.J. Reddick on “The Old Man and the Three” podcast. “… There’s so much at stake, I can’t worry about what’s going on around because then I’m losing sight of what we actually have. If you go through the season, or situations where it’s like, ‘That trade makes them better than us,’ or ‘If we don’t get the No. 1 seed we’re not going to the finals.’ You don’t know. You have no idea.”

Mazzulla, who admitted to being caught up in Boston’s chase for the No. 1 seed in 2023, is more focused on how his team can improve while admitting the Bucks present quite the challenge.

“They’re going to be a nightmare to play against,” Mazzulla said. “But my job is to make us a nightmare to play against too and we’ll see what happens when two nightmares play against each other.”

The new-look Celtics and Bucks will match up for the first time on Nov. 22 at TD Garden.