BOSTON – Joe Mazzulla gathered his team in the locker room before taking on the Oklahoma City Thunder Wednesday night and told them they had a significant opportunity on their plate: if they were to win that night, they would clinch the best overall record in the NBA.
He told them to eat, and so they ate.
The Celtics gathered all of their energy and struck down one of the best teams in the West, 135-100, to secure home-court advantage for the entire playoffs.
After the game, Mazzulla told the group not to take what they had accomplished for granted.
“I think it's important to have the gratitude for that,” he said of earning the No. 1 overall seed. “It's very hard to do. We may never be in this position again, so you don't want to take it for granted.
“We definitely talked about it as a team – talked about it before the game – trying to treat this game as the clincher to kind of put that on ourselves to do that. I think it was important for us to simulate that. It's just a testament to the guys.”
It had been a long time since the Celtics had been in such a position. The last time they clinched the best record in the NBA was in 2008. The previous time before that was in 1986.
Those happen to be the last two seasons in which the Celtics won a championship. Of course, there’s a long way to go before we can even start thinking about the “C” word, but there’s no question that this achievement indicates that they are on the right track.
“We worked hard all season long and I think we deserved this,” said Kristaps Porzingis, who logged 27 points, 12 rebounds, four assists, and five blocks in Wednesday’s win. “It wasn’t a specific goal for us, but as the year went on, we kept on doing our job, kept on working hard at winning games and we ended up at this point. I think we deserve it, and it’s possibly going to matter if we follow through with the vision that we have for ourselves.”
Along with securing homecourt advantage, the Celtics also hit a milestone in the win column with their 60th. It’s the first time since 2008-09 that the Celtics have reached that mark, and they did so before any other East team even reached 50 victories.
It marked the 14th time in franchise history that the team reached 60 wins in a season, which is the most of any NBA team.
“It’s an honor, it's a blessing to be on a 60-win team,” said Jaylen Brown after a 23-point, seven-rebound, four-assist, two-block effort. “It’s a lot of hard work that went into that, especially after coming up short last season, responding and coming back and not skipping any steps. I think we're on track, but when the playoffs start, back to square one.”
Mazzulla shared a similar mindset that it’s important to celebrate small successes along the path to a bigger goal but not to let those celebrations linger until that ultimate goal is met.
“We should enjoy it tonight,” Mazzulla said. “Then wake up tomorrow and … Time to get back to work.”