After Game 4 lost in Dallas, Joe Mazzulla spoke to the press about the Mavericks’ victory over the Celtics. Mazzulla praised the Mavs for their performance and told his players that they would have to earn every win in this series if they wanted to win the NBA championship.
“Listen, Dallas is a great team. You’ve got to give them credit for how they played: they played well and they played hard. And you’re going to have to earn the title. There’s a lot of things we can control. We’ll go back to the film and watch it, we’ll reflect about our mistakes and we will try to be more disciplined and controlled in the way we defend and attack them.”
Al Horford agrees that the Mavericks played harder with so much on the line for both teams. And that should sting the Celtics as they return to Boston for Game 5 on Monday with another chance to lift the Larry O’Brien Trophy.
“At the end of the day, it showed they were the better team tonight,” Horford told reporters, according to video provided by the league. “We can say a lot of good and bad things about us. They played much better than us. They clearly outplayed us, and that’s hard to accept, but that’s the reality.”
