Joe Mazzulla keeps circling the same question with the Celtics: how much faster can they go without giving something away?
That’s been the annual tension in Boston for a while now. The Celtics finished last season dead last in pace and were next to last the year before that.
To find the last time they were outside the bottom third, you have to go back to 2019-20. And yet every fall brings the same hope that this team will finally turn the page.
Last year, Josh Minott sounded certain after the first official practice: “I can already tell you we’re going to be the fastest team in the league,”
That same day, Luka Garza pointed to the style Boston wanted to play. “You could tell right since I got here that that’s the focus this year. What we want to do is get up and down and push the pace and get into actions early and be able to move the ball around and score and kind of use all sides of the floor while doing that.”
The Celtics then finished with their worst pace number since 2014.
This year, Mazzulla is approaching the subject with a little more caution. “I figure anything that we could do would be a little bit better,” he told reporters at the team’s first official practice this season.
“It's a topic that comes up every single year, and what people don't talk about is the other side of that. If you do lean into that more, it's at the expense of something else.
So I think everything that we do is just a balance.”
That’s the crux of it. Faster doesn’t automatically mean better.
The teams that play at the highest pace are often there because they have to be, not because they can carve up defenses in the half court. Boston has usually been the opposite: slow by league standards, but effective enough to keep winning anyway.
Part of that comes down to how they’ve managed possessions. Even with a slow tempo, the Celtics took three-and-a-half more shots per game than their opponents last season. That’s the kind of edge Mazzulla has built around in Boston.
The risk, though, is obvious. More pace can mean more possessions for both teams.
If Boston pushes harder, gets more shots, and the opponent gets more chances too, the whole thing becomes a tradeoff. Three extra shots only matter if those possessions are better than the ones they’re giving up.
Mazzulla’s concern is that speed can also create messy possessions the other way. Missed layups can turn into easy points in transition. If Boston is attacking the rim more often but coming away empty on a couple of those drives, the other team might be cashing in from deep before the Celtics can get set.
“That's where it's like learning your team. What balance are we willing to give up on one thing to be better at something else,” Mazzulla said.
“It's never just ‘get better at this.’ It's always ‘if you get better at this, you're going to get a little bit worse at this,’ and you're going to lose the rope on those things … each team is a little bit different.”
There is still a clear case for Boston to speed up, especially when Jayson Tatum is off the floor. Without him controlling the offense, pushing the ball could help the Celtics create easier looks and keep pressure on defenses.
And pace isn’t only about sprinting end to end. It’s also about how quickly Boston gets into its offense, whether that starts at :18 on the shot clock instead of :12. The idea is to make the defense work sooner, force more mistakes, and keep the ball moving before the possession bogs down.
Payton Pritchard said the responsibility falls on the whole group. “Every one of us has to take a jump, get a little bit better,” he said.
“I think we're going to play with more movement. Hopefully, we play a little bit faster … It's partly on some of us, partly on me to get the ball out, push the pace.”
The Celtics have been chasing this for years. The question now is whether this is finally the season they stop talking about speed and actually live it.
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