Joe Mazzulla

Pacers Notes: Game 4 Loss, Haliburton, Mathurin, Nesmith, Carlisle

June 14th, 2025 at 8:39pm CST by Arthur Hill

The Pacers were on their way to taking a commanding 3-1 lead in the NBA Finals Friday night when their offense inexplicably hit a wall, writes James Boyd of The Athletic. The crisp passing and constant motion they’ve displayed throughout the series disappeared in the fourth quarter, allowing Oklahoma City to rally for a 111-104 victory and head back home with the series tied.

“We just got too stagnant,” coach Rick Carlisle said. “The ball was not being advanced quickly enough. We weren’t creating problems, and we were up against the clock a lot. So things got very difficult, but you gotta give Oklahoma (City) credit. They made it very difficult.”

The numbers tell an ugly story as Indiana was outscored 31-17 during the final 12 minutes. Tyrese Haliburton, who went 3-of-7, was the only Pacers player to make more than one shot during the fourth quarter as they registered just one assist and committed three turnovers. Ten of their 27 fouls came in the fourth quarter, and they shot just 5-of-18 as a team while missing all eight of their three-point attempts.

“I gotta do a better job of keeping pace in the game,” Haliburton said. “I thought I did a much better job of that last game, especially down the stretch. Keeping pace, getting rebounds and really pushing (the ball). I think we gotta do a better job of when we do get stops, getting out and running. A lot of times in that fourth (quarter), we were fouling too much, taking the ball out, having to kind of run (a set play) versus just random basketball.”

There’s more on the Pacers:

Even with the late struggles, Indiana was positioned for another miracle finish when Bennedict Mathurin went to the foul line trailing by four points with 24 seconds remaining, per Kyle Neddenriep of The Indianapolis Star. Mathurin missed both shots, but got another opportunity a few seconds later with a five-point deficit. He split those attempts, effectively killing any hope of a Pacers comeback. “It’s very tough,” said Mathurin, who had been connecting at 89% from the line throughout the playoffs. “I’ve made those free throws, and I love making tough free throws. The only thing I can do is to knock them down next time.”
During Friday’s broadcast, ABC announcer Mike Breen shared a conversation with Pacers forward Aaron Nesmith, who credited Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla for helping him early in his career, relays Brian Robb of MassLive. Nesmith played two seasons in Boston before being traded to Indiana in 2022.
Carlisle has been preparing his players for a lengthy series, which will last 18 days if it goes the full seven games, according to Jamal Collier of ESPN. Carlisle believes his team will be mentally ready when play resumes Monday night. “It’s long. It’s arduous. But it’s the greatest opportunity going,” he said. “It’s really hard, and it’s supposed to be hard. This is where we’re going to have to dig in and circle the wagons and come back stronger on Monday. This is a big disappointment, but there’s three games left. This series is going to come down to the basics. … This kind of a challenge is going to have extreme highs and extreme lows. This is a low right now, and we’re going to have to bounce back from it.”

Phil Pressey To Coach Celtics’ G League Team

June 13th, 2025 at 1:47pm CST by Luke Adams

Former NBA guard Phil Pressey will be named the head coach of the Maine Celtics, Boston’s G League affiliate, league sources tell Michael Scotto of HoopsHype (Twitter link).

Pressey, 34, played college ball at Missouri from 2010-13 and then signed with the Celtics after going undrafted. He appeared in 125 regular season games across two seasons for Boston before spending time with the Sixers and Suns in 2015/16. From 2016-22, he competed in the G League and in various leagues in Spain, Turkey, and Germany.

Pressey averaged 3.2 points and 2.9 assists in 13.6 minutes per game across 148 total NBA appearances, with a .341/.254/.630 shooting line.

A year after ending his playing career, Pressey rejoined the Celtics in 2023 as a player enhancement coach under Joe Mazzulla. He has spent the past two seasons in that role.

Pressey will be replacing Tyler Lashbrook, who was Maine’s head coach in 2024/25 after spending the previous season in Boston as a player development coach. It’s unclear whether Lashbrook will be rejoining the Celtics’ NBA staff or leaving the team for a new opportunity, but he did well in Maine this past season, leading the G League squad to a 21-13 regular season record and an appearance in the NBAGL’s Eastern Conference Finals.

Eastern Notes: Yabusele, Sixers Arena, Hawks, Mazzulla

June 9th, 2025 at 9:57pm CST by Dana Gauruder

Guerschon Yabusele is “excited” to see how his free agency plays out and plans to remain in the NBA, he told Cyro Asseo de Choch of Hoops Hype. The Sixers big man was one of the few bright spots for the franchise this season after playing in Europe from 2020-24. He posted averages of 11.0 points, 5.6 rebounds and 2.1 assists in 27.1 minutes per game while appearing in 70 contests.

He’ll be an unrestricted free agent after playing for the veteran’s minimum.

“We will see those options also with the upcoming summer when we’re going to know a little bit what’s going on,” he said. “I know the Sixers are going to look change some pieces in the roster, so you have to wait also to see what’s gonna happen but the draft’s gonna set everything pretty much for every team to know where they’re going with the trades and stuff like that.

“I guess we’ll see soon, but I’m pretty excited. It’s going to be my first time really enjoying free agency, especially in the NBA. I’m pretty excited just to hear the offers, to see what’s going on, to see the movement. This summer is going to have a lot of movement on every team, so to be able to be part of that is just amazing.”

We have more from the Eastern Conference:

The Sixers and Comcast Spectacor have selected an architecture firm to design their new arena, according to Jake Blumgart of the Philadelphia Inquirer. Populous, a global arena design firm, will craft the plans for the new South Philadelphia structure. It’s scheduled to open in 2031, replacing the Wells Fargo Center.
Asa Newell (Georgia), Clifford Omoruyi (Alabama), Will Richard (Florida) and Jase Richardson (Michigan State) were among the players who worked out for the Hawks on Monday, Lauren Williams of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution tweets. Richardson and Newell are considered first-round talents. They are currently ranked No. 20 and 21, respectively, on ESPN’s Best Available list. The Hawks hold the No. 13 and 22 picks in the first round.
Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla has been spotted in Turkey on an apparent scouting mission, Chema de Lucas tweets. Mazzulla could be there to take a look at Euroleague star Nigel Hayes-Davis, who plays for Fenerbahçe and has drawn interest from Boston in the past. Hayes-Davis had a brief stay in the NBA in 2017/18, playing nine games for three teams.

Celtics Notes: Game 3 Win, Tatum, Porzingis, Pritchard, Mazzulla

May 10th, 2025 at 11:02pm CST by Arthur Hill

“You’ve got to tap into your darkness,” coach Joe Mazzulla said as the Celtics approached Saturday facing a 2-0 series deficit, and his team responded with probably its best game of the playoffs, writes Jared Weiss of The Athletic. Boston struck quickly, built a commanding early lead, and controlled the game throughout on its way to a 115-93 victory.

“If you plan on doing this for a long time, trust me, it’ll be a lot worse than the last 72 hours, and that’s the perspective you have to have,” Mazzulla said. “This is the fun part. I didn’t get into the journey for it to be easy. It’s been dark, but in a good way.”

The Celtics set a playoff record by missing 45 three-point attempts in the series opener and were shooting 25% as a team from beyond the arc in the first two games. That changed dramatically in Game 3 as they overwhelmed the Knicks from the outside, connecting on 20-of-40 three-point shots.

Jayson Tatum, who had been badly misfiring in the first two games, made five of his nine three-point attempts on Saturday and talked about the need to be a leader when times are tough.

“You just understand what comes with being that guy,” he said. “I get a lot of praise, I get a lot of credit, I get a lot of accolades, but I’m not perfect. And there’s times where I’ve needed to play better, I’ve needed to do more, and that’s what comes with being that guy.”

There’s more on the Celtics:

Kristaps Porzingis played 19 minutes off the bench, but he’s still experiencing side effects from a virus he contracted in late February, sources tell Shams Charania of ESPN (Twitter video link). Charania states that Porzingis has been dealing with “energy zaps” and stamina “ebbs and flows” over the past two months. He began feeling better before the team’s first-round series, but went through a “crash” before Game 1 against New York.
Payton Pritchard was 5-of-10 from three-point range on Saturday while logging 35 minutes, the most playing time he’s seen in this year’s postseason, per Khari Thompson of The Boston Globe. Mazzulla explained that he gave Pritchard an expanded role because Jrue Holiday picked up early fouls. “Our sub patterns are always flexible,” Mazzulla said. “Tonight, Jrue had three fouls and Payton was good. At times, you go with what makes the most sense. Just the flexibility of what we were able to do, but he played really well on both ends of the floor for us. There was some foul trouble there, so we were able to go to some different stuff.”
Mazzulla’s job is likely safe regardless of the outcome of this series, Brian Robb of MassLive states in a mailbag column. However, he warns that the Celtics will likely have to sacrifice some depth this summer due to financial concerns, so it will be harder for Mazzulla to keep the team at an elite level in the future.

Celtics Notes: Shot Selection, Porzingis, Waitzkin, Mazzulla, Stevens

May 6th, 2025 at 10:37am CST by Luke Adams

The Celtics set an ignominious record on Monday in their loss to New York. As Brian Windhorst of ESPN writes, their 60 three-point attempts were the most ever taken by a team in a playoff game, but their 45 three-point misses also represented a new high-water mark for the NBA postseason.

Boston hasn’t been shy this season about firing away from beyond the three-point arc. The team’s 48.2 attempts per game during the regular season were nearly six more than that of second-place Golden State (42.4). After making just 25.0% of their outside shots in a Game 1 loss, they expressed mixed feelings about having attempted 60 three-pointers compared to just 37 two-point tries.

“I look at the process and the shot quality, (and) our shot quality was high,” head coach Joe Mazzulla said. “There were probably eight to 10 shots that could be better at for sure.”

ESPN’s data backs up Mazzulla’s assertion. According to ESPN Research, 45 of the Celtics’ three-point attempts were “uncontested,” but the team missed 32 of those shots. Celtics stars Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum suggested after the game that they probably should’ve tried to get to the rim more often as those misses piled up.

“In those moments when the other team got momentum you can’t just fire up threes to break up momentum,” Brown said, per Windhorst. “You got to get to the free throw line, get to the paint, get to the basket, maybe get an easy two. You hit some free throws and then maybe the next three-pointer feels a little bit better.”

Here’s more on the Celtics:

The Celtics essentially cruised to a title last season, never losing a Game 1 or more than a single game in any playoff series. However, as Jay King of The Athletic writes, Mazzulla predicted ahead of the second round that his team would have to overcome more adversity this time around if it hoped to repeat. “There’s been great teams that have gone down (in series), great teams that have blown leads, kept leads, all that stuff just kind of goes into the nature of the competitive arena that you’re in, and you have to take the good with the bad if you plan on being in it for a good amount of time,” Mazzulla said before the Game 1 loss. “So studying that gives you the perspective you need to get to where you want to get to.”
Celtics center Kristaps Porzingis exited Monday’s game with 7:34 left in the second quarter and didn’t return due to an illness, as Souichi Terada of MassLive.com writes. Mazzulla said after the game that he hadn’t had a chance to check on Porzingis, who went scoreless in 13 minutes of action. “Obviously it impacts the game with his ability on both ends of the floor, and it obviously changes sub patterns or changes the things that you’re able to do matchup-wise and play-call frequency wise, so yeah, I think we felt it,” the Celtics’ coach said of the big man’s absence. “But it’s no excuse. We had plenty of opportunities to do it, and hopefully he’s ready for Game 2.”
In an interesting story for The Boston Globe (subscription required), Adam Himmelsbach takes an in-depth look at the impact that former child chess prodigy Josh Waitzkin has had on Mazzulla. According to Himmelsbach, Waitzkin – who was featured in the 1993 film ‘Searching For Bobby Fischer’ – was quietly hired by the Celtics as a consultant for this season and has become one of Mazzulla’s “most trusted” confidants. “Josh is great at finding certain segments of the game where it either went really well or it didn’t go well and seeing it from a non-tactical perspective,” Mazzulla explained. “It’s more getting into the mind of an individual fighter or performer.”
In a feature story for The Athletic, Jay King explores how Brad Stevens‘ time at Butler helped provide a blueprint for him to build the roster that turned the Celtics into champions. “Brad understands the most important thing in any organization, whether it’s the business world or sports world, is people,” said Zach Hahn, a former Butler guard who played for Stevens. “And he surrounds himself and finds people that live by the same standards that he lives by.”

Thunder’s Daigneault, Celtics’ Mazzulla Named Coaches Of The Month

April 1st, 2025 at 4:41pm CST by Luke Adams

Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault is the Western Conference’s Coach of the Month for March, with Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla claiming the award for the Eastern Conference, the NBA announced today (via Twitter).

Daigneault’s Thunder and Mazzulla’s Celtics have been the NBA’s two hottest teams in recent weeks.

Oklahoma City won 15 of 16 games in March en route to clinching the No. 1 seed in the West entering this year’s playoffs. The Celtics had 14 wins in 15 games, putting some pressure on the top-seeded Cavaliers and ensuring they’ll finish the regular season with one of the league’s top three best records.

While he’s not considered one of the frontrunners for Coach of the Year, Daigneault has now been named Coach of the Month in the West three times this season. He and Ime Udoka of the Rockets, who has won the award twice, are the only two Western Conference coaches to earn the monthly honor in 2024/25.

Udoka joins Chris Finch (Timberwolves), Steve Kerr (Warriors), and Tyronn Lue (Clippers) as the other Coach of the Month nominees for March in the West, per the NBA (Twitter link).

Kenny Atkinson of the Cavaliers, who was named the East’s Coach of the Month twice this season, and Rick Carlisle of the Pacers, who won the award in January, are among this month’s Eastern Conference nominees, along with Billy Donovan (Bulls), Quin Synder (Hawks), and Darko Rajakovic (Raptors).

Celtics Notes: New Owner, Horford, Kornet, Hauser, Pritchard, Mazzulla

March 22nd, 2025 at 7:27pm CST by Arthur Hill

The record-setting $6.1 billion purchase price for the Celtics is just the beginning of William Chisholm‘s investment in the franchise. As Jay King of The Athletic notes, Chisholm is taking over a team with a massive salary and huge expectations that will become even more expensive if the core of the roster is kept together.

Boston’s payroll is projected to be in the neighborhood of $445MM next season in salaries and luxury tax, per John Hollinger of The Athletic. That’s without free agents Al Horford and Luke Kornet, who would push that total higher if they’re both re-signed.

As players waited out the sale process, Jayson Tatum talked about the importance of finding a new owner who understands “the culture” and Jaylen Brown expressed the need to “keep the emphasis on winning.” Both statements reflect the necessity for continued spending for the Celtics to remain at a championship level, as King adds that the fanbase will quickly turn on the new owner if talent is sacrificed to save money.

“That’s something that they’ll have to figure out,” Horford said. “Ultimately, they’ll be the new owners of the team, they’ll have to make those decisions. But this is my 18th season in the league and there are very few times when you get a special group or a certain window of guys that you can do some special things. So I’m sure that they will be aware of that but that’s something that you have to understand what you’re stepping into.”

There’s more from Boston:

Bobby Marks of ESPN believes the roster is “sustainable” for the near future, even with the giant tax bills (Twitter video link). Marks points out that the Celtics have 11 players under contract for next season — including Tatum and Brown, who are both signed to long-term deals — and they’ll have two picks in the top 32 of this year’s draft. However, he adds that it could be hard to keep complementary players like Sam Hauser and Payton Pritchard long-term because of the effect they’ll have on the luxury tax.
Coach Joe Mazzulla came away encouraged from his first meeting with the new owner, according to Adam Himmeslbach of The Boston Globe. Chisholm, a Massachusetts native and life-long Celtics fan, pledged to build on the team’s recent success. “Just continue to win championships, continue to be a high-level organization on and off the court, and he obviously has a lot of experience doing that in other endeavors,” Mazzulla said. “So just continuing to work to make the Celtics better, and then kind of give us a shot every year to go after a championship. So I’m excited about that.”
Chisholm expressed similar sentiments to Shams Charania of ESPN (Twitter links). “The team is in a great place right now, and I’m very sensitive to that,” he said. (Current owner) Wyc (Grousbeck), (president of basketball operations) Brad (Stevens) and Joe have done amazing jobs. … My approach is to win and raise banners. That’s in the near term and the long term. I bleed green. I love the Celtics. When opportunity came up, I couldn’t pass it up. Wyc has done an incredible job. So why would you mess that up? I’ve had a couple of sitdowns with Brad and it’s been about aligning our goals and extending the window of this team.”
Eric Fisher of Front Office Sports examines the record price tag, attributing it to the scarcity of pro sports franchises for sale and the NBA’s new media rights deal.

Celtics’ Grousbeck Talks Tax Aprons, Sale, Chisholm, Arena

March 21st, 2025 at 11:01pm CST by Luke Adams

Celtics governor Wyc Grousbeck has agreed to sell his controlling stake in the franchise, but the plan is for Grousbeck to remain in his current position with the team through the 2027/28 season, collaborating with William Chisholm and his investors as the defending champions transition to a new ownership group.

A major part of that transition will involve determining how long to maintain one of the NBA’s highest payrolls. The Celtics are operating over the second tax apron, restricting their ability to make certain roster moves and ensuring that their 2032 draft pick will become “frozen” this offseason, making it ineligible to be traded.

According to Grousbeck, those roster-related restrictions imposed on teams operating above the second apron are of greater concern than the prospect of repeatedly pay substantial luxury tax bills.

“It’s not the luxury tax bill, it’s the basketball penalties,” Grousbeck said during a WEEI appearance when asked about the Celtics’ ability to remain well above the tax line (story via Brian Robb of MassLive.com). “The new CBA was designed by the league to stop teams from going crazy. They decided that it’s not good enough to go after the wallets because the fans can be like, ‘Hey find someone who can afford to spend $500 million dollars a year or whatever it is, like the English Premier League. I know seven guys who own Premier League teams in England with no spending caps and most of them don’t know what the hell is going on.”

“The basketball penalties mean that it’s even more of a premium now to have your basketball general manager be brilliant and lucky,” Grousbeck continued. “Because you have to navigate because you can’t stay in the second apron, nobody will, I predict, for the next 40 years of the CBA, no one is going to stay in the second apron more than two years.”

This is the second consecutive season the Celtics have been in second-apron territory, so Grousbeck’s comments about the sustainability of that approach are eyebrow-raising.

Of course, it’s worth noting that not all of the apron-related penalties had been implemented during the 2023/24 season, so a third season above the second apron might be more viable for the Celtics or another team in ’25/26 than it would be going forward. Still, based on Grousbeck’s remarks, it sounds like some cost-cutting could be in Boston’s future.

Here are a few more noteworthy comments from Grousbeck’s media appearances this week:

On how the Celtics, specifically, plan to navigate the second apron in the short term:
(via Robb)

“We have Brad Stevens, the reigning Executive of The Year, and thank God we do. He’s the one who really brought us this championship with his brilliant moves –along with many other people — but Brad is at the forefront. He’s looking at this and is going to extend our window and make it work. We’ll find out in June or July what we’re going to do.”

On what he told Stevens, head coach Joe Mazzulla, and stars Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown about the sale:
(via Sanjesh Singh of NBC Sports Boston)

“I’ve actually talked to Jayson, Jaylen, Joe and Brad and said, ‘Just so you know…these small group of finalists are all great and they can all do the job, and we won’t let it go to anybody who would fall short of that.’ I told them basically just a few days ago when I saw them all at practice, ‘It’s OK. Don’t put it on your mind. Take it off your mind if you can. Because we’ve got you, this is going to go fine.’

“They said, ‘We trust you.’ Jayson Tatum literally looked at me and said, “I trust you, Wyc. Got it.’ And with good reason, hopefully, that he trusts me. Everything’s good on that front.”

On what advice he has given to Chisholm:
(via Singh)

“Be yourself. You are a fan. The fans are going to love you. We’re not going to win every game together. They want to see that you care, that you’re a fan who bought the team. That’s our group here, we’re fans who bought this team. You’re a fan who’s buying in…we’re going to be fans who’s running this team for Celtic pride on and off the court…When you do that, everything else follows.”

On why there are no plans to build a new arena that the Celtics would own:
(via Robb of MassLive.com)

“It’s not broken over there, and we have a great partnership with (the Jacobs family, which owns the Boston Bruins and the TD Garden). Honestly, there’s room for one arena in Boston, not two. Because you need to have concerts and events to fill out the bill. And if we ever talked to the Jacobs, we all decided to renovate the Garden very seriously – there have been huge, hundreds of millions of dollars of renovations. But if we ever decide to do anything, I’m sure we’d do it together and have both teams playing there.

“It shouldn’t be on everybody’s mind. We’ve got a lease in the Garden until, like, the 2030s, and we’ve got a good partnership with them, and we’ll both upgrade whatever we need to do to keep the fans happy, because we’re fans ourselves.”

Lakers Notes: Hachimura, Hayes, Doncic, Redick

March 9th, 2025 at 9:39am CST by Luke Adams

Lakers forward Rui Hachimura missed a fifth consecutive game on Saturday due to patellar tendinopathy affecting his left knee, but he’s doing “well,” according to head coach J.J. Redick, who told reporters that Hachimura is going through the return-to-play process and doing more on-court work (Twitter link via Khobi Price of the Southern California News Group).

The plan, Redick added on Saturday, is for Hachimura to be reevaluated in about a week.

Meanwhile, the Lakers were also without center Jaxson Hayes on Saturday, which is a more significant loss than it would have been earlier in the season. Hayes had been Los Angeles’ starting center for each of the team’s past 16 games following Anthony Davis‘ injury and the subsequent trade sending him to Dallas.

Hayes, who was listed as out due to a right knee contusion, was replaced by forward Jarred Vanderbilt in the starting five. Redick said the club has been monitoring swelling in Hayes’ knee, but added that he doesn’t believe the injury is “anything serious” and conveyed optimism that the big man’s absence won’t last too long, per Dave McMenamin of ESPN (Twitter link).

Here’s more on the Lakers:

Luka Doncic was shocked when he first learned of the trade sending him from Dallas to Los Angeles, but after over a month with the Lakers, he’s feeling more comfortable in his new NBA home, having recently moved into a leased house in L.A., according to Shams Charania of ESPN (Twitter video link). “He’s felt more and more appreciative and comfortable with how the Lakers have surrounded him with support, with inclusion in the process of everything,” Charania said on NBA Countdown. “This has been a true partnership that they’re trying to develop, and that means a lot for his long-term future for the Lakers.” Doncic will be extension-eligible this offseason and the Lakers are expected to offer him a maximum-salary deal at that time.
The Lakers’ trade for Doncic earned the organization the Alpha Award for Transaction of the Year at this year’s Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, tweets McMenamin. As McMenamin points out, the Celtics won that award a year ago for their acquisition of Kristaps Porzingis.
In an interesting article for The Athletic, Jovan Buha takes a look at the connections between Redick and Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla, who offered Redick a spot as an assistant on his staff on Boston before his first year at the helm in September 2022, then again in March 2023. Redick wasn’t ready at that time to get into coaching, but he made it clear there’s significant mutual respect between him and Mazzulla. “When I was going through this process, he, along with a few other coaches in the NBA, were really helpful,” Redick said. “Not just in preparing for an interview, but just really helping me understand what this was and what it required.”
In case you missed it late on Saturday night, LeBron James is being evaluated after sustaining a groin injury in Saturday’s loss to Boston.

Celtics Notes: Tatum, Mazzulla, Porzingis, Trade Priority

December 21st, 2024 at 7:27pm CST by Arthur Hill

Celtics star Jayson Tatum grew up as a huge admirer of Kobe Bryant, so he was excited about the chance to join the Lakers in the 2017 draft, writes Gary Washburn of The Boston Globe. However, Tatum never got a tryout with L.A., which held the second overall pick, even though he was one considered one of the draft’s top prospects following a stellar freshman season at Duke.

Lakers legend Magic Johnson, who served as team president at the time, explained this week that they were already set at forward with Julius Randle, Brandon Ingram and Larry Nance Jr. on the roster and were focused on finding backcourt help.

“Yeah, I think I was upset at the time that there wasn’t genuine interest,” Tatum said. “From my perspective, I grew up the biggest Kobe fan and wanted to play for the Lakers. And Magic explained it. They had too many forwards and that was their thought process at the time. It wasn’t like I got any animosity toward Magic or the Lakers. It was just as a kid, I was close to accomplishing a life-long dream, the way I thought it would be.”

The draft played out perfectly for Boston, which landed Tatum with the No. 3 pick after trading down from No. 1. Tatum is already a five-time All-Star and four-time All-NBA selection, while Markelle Fultz, who went to Philadelphia with the top pick, is currently out of the league, and Lonzo Ball, whom the Lakers took at No. 2, recently resumed playing in Chicago after missing more than two full years with a knee issue.

“Obviously it worked out best-case scenario,” Tatum added. “But I love Magic Johnson. I love what he means to the game. I have no hard feelings toward him. Every time I see him, it’s always love. It’s just something that happened and it’s probably a million stories throughout the NBA that guys should have went or thought they were going somewhere. Everything happened for a reason.”

There’s more from Boston:

Coach Joe Mazzulla, who was fined $35K for “aggressively pursuing” an official following Thursday’s loss to Chicago, talked to his players before this morning’s shootaround about the importance of staying in control and not overreacting to bad calls, Washburn adds in the same piece. “It’s a long year, so whatever the keys are not only to games but to how you want to go about the season,” Mazzulla said. “It’s just small reminders, always good to refresh those.”
Kristaps Porzingis has been removed from the injury report for tonight’s rematch with the Bulls, according to Souichi Terada of MassLive. Porzingis was originally listed as questionable with a right heel contusion he suffered Sunday at Washington.
Assuming the big-man rotation stays healthy, finding veteran wing depth should be the Celtics’ priority in any trade before the deadline, Brian Robb of MassLive states in a mailbag column. He notes that Jordan Walsh, Baylor Scheierman and Jaden Springer haven’t inspired confidence that they can be reliable during the playoffs.

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