Joe Mazzulla's first full season as the Boston Celtics' head coach came with some much-needed perspective -- which could serve him well as the Eastern Conference arms race heats up.
The Bucks acquired some heavy artillery last week in seven-time All-Star Damian Lillard, who forms a potentially lethal duo with two-time NBA MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo and makes Milwaukee a legitimate title contender.
But when former NBA player JJ Redick asked Mazzulla for his reaction to one of his team's direct competitors making such a significant addition, the second-year head coach didn't sound particularly threatened.
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"He’s a great player. They’re a great team. We don’t have time to worry about that,” Mazzulla told Redick on “The Old Man & the Three” podcast.
We should note Mazzulla and Redick talked before the Celtics acquired ex-Bucks guard Jrue Holiday from the Portland Trail Blazers on Sunday, a move that arguably swings the balance of power back toward Boston. But Mazzulla learned an important lesson last season to only focus on what he and his team can control.
"That really taught me something last year: There’s so much at stake, I can’t worry about what’s going on around (the league) because then I’m losing sight of what we actually have," Mazzulla said. "If you go through the season or situations where it’s like, ‘Oh, that trade makes them better than us,’ or ‘If we don’t get the No. 1 seed we’re not going to the Final.’ You don’t know. You have no idea."
Mazzulla admitted to getting caught up in the race for the East's No. 1 seed last season and being disappointed when the Celtics fell a game short of the Bucks -- a development that may have been a blessing, since the No. 8 seed Miami Heat ousted Milwaukee in the first round before defeating Boston in the East Finals.
Miami's upset of the Bucks reinforced to Mazzulla the unpredictability of the NBA, and the importance of setting his own team up for success, regardless of what other teams look like on paper.
"If I spend more time worrying about those things and not appreciating what we have, one, I'm doing the players a disservice, and two, I'm not going to be as effective at what we do." Mazzulla said.
"So, yeah, (the Bucks are) going to be a nightmare to play against. 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."
Circle Nov. 22 on your calendars: That's the first of three regular-season meetings between the East giants this season, and it could be a potential postseason preview as well.