The Boston Celtics have undergone a new philosophy under head coach Joe Mazzulla. I’m not talking about offensive and defensive schematics, but rather the mental aspect of the game. When things get challenging in the heat of a moment, Mazzulla would rather his team work through the adversity than him call a timeout to reset the situation.

Here is what Rob Williams said about Mazzulla holding everyone on the team accountable, coaches included.

“It’s a terrible feeling when you catch yourself in the moment, doing it, but it’s something that we’re trying to work on. It’s something that we’ve been trying to instill in our group. We tend to let leads go a lot late in the end game, we did it a lot in the Atlanta series. He [Joe] want’s us to take full responsibility, he tells us sometimes ‘I’m not going to call a timeout just because y’all made some stupid mistake’. You know, own up to it, disect it, see what the problem is and play through it. There really isn’t any sugarcoating it on the part of the players or the coaching staff, you know, if someone messes up everyone is vocal enough to address it and we got great people who can reciprocate great energy and they know how to take constructive criticism.”

There have been moments where Mazzulla’s coaching philosophy has actually benefited the Celtics. In some instances, playing through the adversity was a learning experience for this group, as the argument can be made that they’re becoming stronger players because of it.

The Celtics host the 76ers in Game 2 tonight with tipoff set for 8:00 PM in Boston.

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Photo Credit: Jesse D. Garrabrant, NBAE Getty Images