Boston Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla says series vs Indiana Pacers was toughest of 2024 title run

The Celtics rolled through the 2024 playoff field

May 23, 2024; Boston, Massachusetts, USA; Boston Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla reacts against the Indiana Pacers in the second half during game two of the eastern conference finals for the 2024 NBA playoffs at TD Garden. Mandatory Credit: David Butler II-Imagn Images / David Butler II-Imagn Images

In a recent interview with John Karalis in Boston Sports Journal, Boston Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla said that the Celtics 2024 playoff series against the Indiana Pacers was their toughest battle during the postseason.

"That Indiana series was by far the toughest series, and we swept them, but it should have went [to] game seven," Mazzulla said in the interview, which also aired on the Locked On Celtics podcast. Boston won the best-of-seven set 4-0, but the series still had thin margins.

The Celtics took Game 1 by five points, but they needed late heroics and an overtime period to do it. Games 3 and 4 were in Indianapolis and were both three-point wins for Boston — the Pacers were close in three of the four outings. In fact, outside of Game 2, Indiana was tied or ahead in the final minute of every game during the series.

Yet they didn't win once. The results will be what gets remembered, but that was a tough series for the Celtics. Mazzulla believes it was more difficult than any of their other three best-of-sevens, which came against the Miami Heat, Cleveland Cavaliers, and Dallas Mavericks.

"We fought, they fought. You have to have an understanding that we have to fight for the things that we can control but there's so much that goes on that you can't control. We're trying to foul up three and give [Aaron] Nesmith a wide open corner 3. If he makes that and we go in the overtime on the road, it's a completely different game," Mazzulla told Karalis of the series. The Nesmith shot that Boston's head coach is referring to came in Game 3, and it could have changed the series — just like Indiana's heroics did in the second round against the New York Knics. "There's a list of things that I wrote down that I'm like, 'Here are all the things that happened that we had no control over'. And we've got to practice this list of things to try and gain a little bit more control over. But there's still stuff that you have to surrender to within a game," the head coach added, referencing a few timeouts and misplays from the Pacers throughout the series.

The Pacers up-tempo attack, which led to the highest offensive rating of any team in the postseason, was tough to cover. It helped them take down the Milwaukee Bucks in the first round and the Knicks in round two, which led to their first Easter Conference Finals appearance in a decade.

That series didn't go how they hoped, but they played better than the results suggest against Boston. Mazzulla agrees. The entire interview in Boston Sports Journal can be read here.

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