Joe Mazzulla’s Imprint Visible on Celtics Comeback Win vs. 76ers

PHILADELPHIA — Joe Mazzulla didn’t reveal it. As he often does publicly, he couched some of the issues the Celtics faced early in Sunday’s game at the Sixers without going at his players directly. Missed shots impacted their defense, he acknowledged, before shots started falling. He did notice the team lacking in some details as they fell behind by 17 points at halftime to a 76ers team lacking Joel Embiid, Paul George and others.

Before the deficit mounted to 26 in the third, Jayson Tatum revealed, Mazzulla challenged the Celtics during the half and asked if they wanted to take a seat for the night. Boston’s players declined, and scored one of the largest comeback wins over the franchise’s last two decades.

The Celtics won, 118-110, in the surest sign yet that Mazzulla maintained a handle on the pulse of the team through a torturous run of inconsistency stretching back to mid-December. It never appeared that he lost the team, players still followed his lead and perspective post-game even after their worst nights. They stayed mostly attune to his game plans, and on Sunday, answered his challenge.

“We had to be honest with ourselves at halftime,” Tatum said. “They had 20 points in transition. Our competitive spirit wasn’t where it needed to be, and Joe was like, ‘yo, if you’re tired then just tell me. I can sit you guys down and the let the stay ready guys play,’ and we just had a choice to make. It was a long third quarter, it didn’t go our way right away and we just had to keep fighting, but it brought the best out of us. That’s how we’re supposed to play.”

Despite Kelly Oubre Jr. back-cutting Tatum late in the quarter, Guerschon Yabusele tearing through Boston’s back line for an aggressive slam before he pounded on his chest and Ricky Council IV turning Tatum over as time ran out in the frame, Derrick White poked the ball back from Yabusele and Tatum fed Jaylen Brown full court for a final score to cut the lead to 14. Boston had a chance again, and the players told each other to keep chipping away at the lead. White and Sam Hauser’s threes sparked the 16-6 closing run, and it carried.

By then, Mazzulla adjusted to Philadelphia’s zone defense that mostly ignored Hauser and left him in the game over Al Horford, who did not play in the second half, a sharp reaction after mostly rolling with double-big lineups and set rotations on healthy nights. Hauser hit back-to-back threes to start the fourth quarter, finished 4-of-7 from deep and Luke Kornet’s run among the league leader’s in net rating since the start of last month continued with extended playing time in the quarter culminating in a 28-10 Celtics run.

“We got stops, we were able to get out, we were able to run. I think we made 11 straight shots, which if you’re gonna come back, you have to do that,” Mazzulla said. “I was kind of studying their body language, and it looked like they really wanted to do what it took to win, so I stuck with them and they delivered. I was proud to coach them this game.”

The finish featured some of Jrue Holiday and Tatum’s best defense of the season on Tyrese Maxey, who tortured Boston with 23 points on 7-for-14 shooting before the half. He missed his last four shots against heavy resistance while the Sixers fell to 5-for-18 with a pair of turnovers in the final frame. Yabusele did not scored over the final 8:41 and the Celtics stayed within 3-2 on the offensive glass. Their pep in their step defensively almost completely contrasted the constant blow-bys and slow feet on the defensive end for Boston earlier in the game.

Tatum acknowledged that effort wasn’t acceptable. Brown lamented past nights where the Celtics might’ve let it go and made some excuses to the media. We’ve heard them — best shots, players shooting above their expectations, bumps and bruises, and post-championship malaise. Boston sounded more ready than ever before to put all those factors aside and look at themselves, and while Mazzulla might’ve tried in other circumstances to instill some accountability that simply didn’t become public — his halftime call-out could go down as an important moment this season if it flows throughout and beyond February.

Mazzulla stressed how rare opportunities to achieve comebacks like Sunday’s are over a regular season, and to actually finish them. That the Celtics did so by flexing their three-point volume advantage, hitting them in droves, only adds to the sense that Mazzulla has what it takes to pull them out of their first half hangover.

“I don’t know, it’ll teach us what we need it to teach us,” Mazzulla said. “When we play Cleveland, we’ll have a different set of (lessons). So at the end of the day, you try to build off these, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll build off tomorrow and the next day, but I just liked the guys’ approach and a mindset for this one particular game. We know that we have it in us to be able to do some stuff like that, so it’s important that you’re in some of these situations … you gotta play hard, math and effort.”

• Payton Pritchard missed his first game since April, 2023, sitting out with an illness after playing 132 straight games.
• Al Horford and others reacted to the earth-shattering Luka Doncic trade earlier that morning: “We were all in disbelief,” Horford said. “We didn’t think it was real.”
  
• Yabusele reacted to reports that Denver, New York and his former Boston Celtics could pursue him ahead of Thursday’s trade deadline.