With a sparkling 16-3 playoff record, it didn’t seem like the Boston Celtics would face much resistance en route to the 2024 NBA title. However, according to Joe Mazzulla Individual Quote MachineYou have to read between the lines. Because even though the series was very short, Mazzulla said that one team pushed the Celtics further than expected.
It was the Indiana Pacers that the Celtics swept in the Eastern Conference Finals, but not without a big fight.
In a new interview with John Karalis of the Boston Sports JournalMazzulla claims the Pacers made the Celtics sweat more than any other team they’ve faced in the playoffs. In fact, he went so far as to say the Celtics were lucky that this series didn’t end in seven losses to the rising Indiana team.
More information from the Boston Sports Journal:
“That series in Indiana was by far the toughest, and we swept them, but it should have ended in seventh place,” he said. [Mazzulla]”You have to understand that we have to fight for the things we can control, but there’s so much going on that we can’t control. We’re trying to draw three-point fouls and give (Aaron) Nesmith a wide-open corner three-pointer. If he makes that and we go to overtime on the road, it’s going to be a completely different game.”
Mazzulla is right. Although I find it hard to believe that the Pacers could have won this series against the Celtics, especially after Tyrese Haliburton missed most of the game with a hamstring injury —they probably deserved a better result than a tidal wave. They wouldn’t have been shut out if it hadn’t been for a few unlucky bounces here and there. But that’s how sports and basketball go sometimes.
For what it’s worth, Mazzulla’s claim that a team the Celtics swept posed their biggest challenge is a recent precedent for being a harbinger of what could happen to a reigning NBA champion.
After the Denver Nuggets won the 2023 NBA title, some Nuggets players, like key reserve guard Bruce BrownAnthony Edwards said the Minnesota Timberwolves pushed Denver the furthest in its championship run, even though they won a five-game series in the first round. When the Nuggets and Timberwolves met a year later in the second round, we saw many of the same struggles that Minnesota inflicted on Denver in 2023, which helped Edwards and his teammates overturned their rivals in a decisive seventh away game.
All of this doesn’t mean the Pacers are necessarily the Celtics’ biggest challenger on paper. Far from it, in fact.
But the NBA is much more about matchups than some people realize. The Celtics’ five-and-out offense, where everyone can shoot and a defense filled with elite perimeter talent, is equipped to handle almost any opponent well. But the Pacers don’t really play that way. They almost always push the pace and control the game in their own way, even in ways that make the Celtics uncomfortable, as we saw in the first meeting between these two teams in the conference finals.
Perhaps most importantly, like the Timberwolves, this was just the young Pacers’ first playoff experience. Presumably, they’ll return better prepared for the pressure and challenges of the playoffs. That can only help them in another potential battle against Boston.
If the Celtics and Pacers ever meet again in the playoffs, I wouldn’t be surprised if Indiana pushes Boston to its absolute limits and beyond. And if you don’t believe me, you should definitely listen to Mazzulla.
