Joe Mazzulla’s “Mindset” Behind Intentionally-Hard Celtics Training Camp

It doesn’t seem as though it was three months ago that the Boston Celtics defeated the Dallas Mavericks in Game 5 of the NBA Finals and seized Banner 18, but the team is back to work and now less than four weeks from Opening Night on Oct. 22.

Preparing for its first championship defense in over a decade, Boston isn’t cutting corners. That’s the plan and it starts with training camp. Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla is setting the tone while also welcoming back nearly the entire cast of Boston’s title-winning crew — Oshae Brissett and Svi Mykhailiuk are the only players not returning — for another training camp and just like last season, the goal hasn’t changed one bit.

“It’s a mindset,” Mazzulla told reporters at Sunday’s practice, per CLNS Media. “When it comes down to that, you have to find ways even when things are really hard, to execute and you have to find a way to just be great and work at that. The guys do a great job of doing that and they’ve competed through the first four days.”

Mazzulla added: “As long as we know we’re on the same page about trying to get the best out of each other and the team, I think it works.”

Boston is entering its third season with Mazzulla as head coach. At this point, everyone aside from newcomers, understands the Mazzulla method driven by open-mindedness and unique, quirky tactics that basketball teams don’t traditionally utilize.

When the Celtics were honored at Fenway Park by the Boston Red Sox to celebrate their championship, Mazzulla jotted down mental notes. He wasn’t watching the game with the same lenses as the thousands of others in attendance, but instead hunting applicable lessons to preach to Boston and that’s exactly what Mazzulla did after cutting up film from the game to share with the locker room ahead of Opening Night.

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When Kristaps Porzingis arrived prematurely at training camp and crossed paths with Mazzulla, the 7-foor-2 center was asked a simple question and given an even simpler — and more direct — answer in response.

“What do you think training camp should be? Easy or hard?” Mazzulla asked Porzingis at Auerbach Center, per ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne. “… It should be super hard.”

The Celtics did everything they could last season, but still, the team understands the doubt hasn’t detached itself. Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown were disrespected in their own ways by USA Basketball during the 2024 Paris Olympics, Porzingis is returning from offseason knee surgery — maybe around December — and the path Boston took to crossing the finish line has left outsiders belittling its record-setting championship. So, while Mazzulla’s mindset for the team hasn’t changed, regardless if the Celtics returned to training camp as champions or not, the outside perception, too, is still the same.

Boston can’t control the goalpost movement occurring outside TD Garden, but the champs can silence them for another summer by hitting the rewind button in 2024-25.

“At the end of the day, whether we won or lost, if we’re standing up here at this point the goal is to win,” Mazzulla said during media day at Auerbach Center. “Whether we would’ve lost last year our goal would be to win a championship this year. So I think just clearly stating we want to win a championship every single year. That’s the goal, that’s the standard, that’s the expectation. So, what happened in the past really doesn’t change when we step for in the building on this day, it’s to win a championship.”