Joe Mazzulla and Jaylen Brown Reveal How Boston Celtics Handled Game 2 Loss

In Game 2 of their first-round playoff series, the Boston Celtics were defeated by the Miami Heat at TD Garden. In Game 3, three days later, the Celtics answered back with a 20-point victory over the Heat.

Per Inside The Celtics, Joe Mazzulla discussed how his team handled the Game 2 loss. 

“You just have to find that balance of focusing on what’s most important. I think sometimes, when you have a lot of time off, you can easily start to come up with all these things. At the end of the day, the game is pretty simple. You gotta find the simple things that you can execute, the simple things you can take away. And then how do you just bring the right mindset and physicality? To me, I know it’s mundane and the playoffs create a lot of hysteria, but there’s no difference between the regular season and a playoff game. You just gotta bring it — mentally, physically, emotionally. Just gotta bring it and you gotta execute. It’s just preparing yourself for that.”

Jaylen Brown registered 22 points, eight rebounds, and three assists in Game 3. Brown commented on his mentality heading into the match.

“Yeah, I mean, I think it’s good. On any given night teams can come out and hit a plethora of shots, they had a record-breaking night the other day. But we don’t panic. We watched the film, broke it down, seeing where we could make some improvements and we come out and we execute. And I thought that’s what we did tonight. It calls for that. Everything ain’t gonna go and be perfect. We just gotta make sure that we stay together and we keep learning from our mistakes in real-time and executing down the stretch.”

Game 4 is scheduled for Monday, Apr. 29 at Kaseya Center. Tip-off is at 7:30 p.m. EST.