While everyone had projected a huge win for the Boston Celtics Thursday in their game against the Detroit Pistons, Joe Mazzulla was nervous.
Oh sure, you say, he’s the coach, they’re always acting like they’re nervous.
But Mazulla pitched to his team before tipoff that they would be in for a difficult night.
Joe Mazzulla was right to be paranoid
“I think everybody comes into a game like this and it’s like, ‘Oh, the Celtics are playing the Pistons, they should win the game and they’re gonna win the game.'” Mazzulla said in his postgame press conference. “And they look at the record and they create this emotional mindset of like, ‘Oh this is easy.’”
Well, yeah. The Pistons had lost 27 straight games. They were 2-28! It should be easy, right?
“Nobody’s probably watched five or six Detroit Pistons games and see how hard they play and how talented they are,” Mazzulla told reporters. “Just because they’re 2-and-whatever, it doesn’t mean they haven’t been in 10 close games that they could’ve won if the ball bounced their way.”
The paranoid coach was right. Detroit jumped out to a 19-point halftime lead, fought back when Boston went ahead in the fourth quarter, and lost in overtime 128-122.
The Celtics turned over the ball 10 times in the first half. They shot 28.2% from 3-point range for the game and missed 20 in the first half.
Will the Toronto Raptors head the warning? If not, the Pistons might be able to stop the losing when Toronto comes to town Saturday at 5 p.m.