The Boston Celtics beat the New York Knicks at home tonight to keep their hopes of repeating as champions alive. Despite losing Jayson Tatum to a devastating injury in the game prior, Joe Mazzulla’s men did well to bounce back in Game 5. But if you ask both the teams’ coaches, well, things haven’t really changed. And it seems their players also agree.
The Celtics won Game 5 by 25 points, 127-102. And after the game, Joe Mazzulla was asked whether the injury to JT, who scored over 40 points in the last game, changed anything for the reigning champions. In his response, Mazzulla gave credit to the rest of his team for stepping up in JT’s absence.
“I mean, again, you never wanna be without any of your players, especially one of your best ones. But we’ve gotten plenty of reps at that. And, regardless of who the player is out, each guy steps up and plays a different role. So, we have multiple identities on both ends of the floor, and tonight we’re able to tap into one of the ones that we have, without him. And we just gotta continue to do that,” said the Celtics head coach.
And rather surprisingly, his Knicks counterpart, Tom Thibodeau, agreed with Mazzulla’s assessment. “Well, it doesn’t change stylistically. Like, in terms of, they have a lot of shooting on the floor. So, that’s gonna remain the same. And I think the thing about their team is they’re a great defensive team as well. So, we have to understand that, yeah, we can’t be slow getting back, and you can’t give open shots to them. And so we gotta be tougher with our closeouts and taking airspace away, and we gotta be better with our communication,” said Thibs.
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