Dwight Howard had a change in setting during a YouTube video, traveling to Manny Pacquaio’s house in the Philippines. During this visit, the NBA legend played chess with the former boxer and discussed a plethora of topics. After Pacquaio touched upon the fact that the Boston Celtics were very strong, Howard went on to talk about the strength the team was with the presence of three legit MVP contenders.
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PacMan’s knowledge related to the NBA doesn’t come as a surprise considering that he played professional basketball as well. However, Howard felt the need to explain just how dangerous the Celtics have been. The former NBA star did so by revealing that Joe Mazzulla’s boys had multiple players on the squad worthy of competing for the Most Valuable Player award–Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, and Jrue Holiday.
“They really got three guys that could have won MVP – Tatum and Brown but I like Jrue Holiday,” Howard said. Holiday’s efforts on the defensive end extremely impressed Howard. Being a 3x DPOY himself, “Superman” went on to laud the two-way star more than the All-NBA duo of Tatum and Brown.
“It’s his (Holiday) defense… I trained with him a little bit before in LA and so they do a lot of drills… so that’s why his defense is like that cause they just drill all day different scenarios of defense and he stops everybody,” Howard concluded.
Holiday did emerge as one of the frontrunners to win the 2024 Finals MVP. While Brown did ultimately win the prestigious accolade, Holiday’s contributions in the series v. the Mavericks – 14.4 points, 7.4 rebounds, and 109.8 defensive rating – have certainly propelled him into MVP discussions.
Despite what the likes of Dwight Howard claim, it is impressive that Joe Mazzulla is keeping his boys well-grounded and hungry for more titles by claiming that there is still room for improvement.
Mazzulla claims that the Celtics are still striving for greatness
The Celtics have one of the best rosters in the league led by the likes of Tatum, Brown, Holiday, Derrick White, and Kristaps Porzingis. They will enter the 2024-2025 season as title contenders and the team to defeat.
However, Joe Mazzulla doesn’t want his side to be attached to the championship they won last season. The head coach has often spoken about the team continuing to have their underdog mentality and further striving for greatness.
“We’re not defending anything. We’re chasing another championship … It’s a new season … We’ve got to figure out a way to get better,” Mazzulla said.
Joe Mazzulla told Jayson Tatum that despite the dominance of last year, the Celtics still have room for improvement, via @BostonGlobe.
"We're not defending anything. We're chasing another championship … It's a new season … We've got to figure out a way to get better.” pic.twitter.com/6OaCCxlUlb
— Daniel Donabedian (@danield1214) September 22, 2024
While it’s great that Mazzulla doesn’t want his side to feel as if they are sitting on the throne, the fact of the matter is that the Celtics are the early favorites to win the 2025 championship.
The team was able to use this underdog mentality during the 2023-2024 season due to their constant failure – finals in 2022 & four WCF appearances since 2017 – to win the title. But it’ll be interesting to see how their mentality and performance are affected now that they are defending their title with hopes of making it two in two years.
