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BOSTON — Jaylen Brown believes everything is set to become more challenging for his Celtics this season. If they were playing on easy mode before, the level of difficulty has increased. To counter that, he said, his team needs to rely on new strengths.
“To be honest, we’ve been spoiled to some degree where we’ve been able to have a bunch of talented players come through, which has made a lot of our jobs a little bit easier,” Brown said after practice Monday. “This year is a little different. What we lack in experience we’ve gotta make up (for) with speed and mentality, so that’s fun as well too.”
In their preseason opener on Wednesday against the Grizzlies, the Celtics are set to unveil a brand new style. Based on everything the players have said throughout training camp, they have made significant strategic shifts on both ends of the court. Last year’s foundation, based on a different roster, has been remodeled out of necessity.
“The style changes,” Brown said. “The pace changes. The mentality changes, for sure. We got some experience we lost, so we’re trying to make up for that with speed and intensity.”
Speed. Intensity. Physicality. Though those might sound like cliches preached in every NBA training camp, the Celtics appear committed to transforming how they operate. Brown said this training camp has probably been the hardest of his career from a conditioning and physicality standpoint. The competitiveness has even left marks at times. On Monday, Payton Pritchard still had a cut on his neck that he first picked up on Friday.
“It’s been very physical,” Pritchard said. “It’s definitely been a war out there.”
Block out the noise 🔇 pic.twitter.com/yCUkVCYvlA
— Boston Celtics (@celtics) October 6, 2025
That is by design. After seeing the NBA allow more physicality over the second half of last season, and especially in the playoffs, the Celtics have aimed to take advantage of that new trend. Pritchard brought up how the Oklahoma City Thunder “got away with a lot of hands, fouls, a lot of physicality” on their way to a championship. The Celtics want to draw from the Thunder’s hard-hitting strategy — and what’s most interesting, perhaps, is how big a shift such an approach would represent for head coach Joe Mazzulla’s team. In each of the past two seasons, the Celtics have allowed the fewest free-throw attempts.
“Before,” Pritchard said, “we were playing more of a safe defense, of like switching, live with contested shots, don’t foul, don’t put people to the free-throw line. But that’s kind of changed.”
The Celtics don’t want to start sending their opponents to the free-throw line constantly. Still, they plan to live with some whistles they have aimed to avoid in the recent past. Pritchard suggested his team needs to have a willingness to test the limits of physicality. Though a somewhat conservative approach worked for the Celtics during their 2024 championship season, he believed the same style “didn’t work for us as much last year.”
“The NBA evolves every year,” Pritchard said. “So you gotta change your game with it.”
Mazzulla often discusses the need to adapt to NBA trends. Increased physicality became one of the important ones late last season. During the playoffs, the extra aggression allowed by the officials became a talking point throughout the league. Following Boston’s playoff exit, Brad Stevens said the team’s first-round series against Orlando was so physical that “I’m not sure if we played 82 games like that that anybody would be left (standing).” The Thunder built their success partly on a defense that forced the most turnovers in the league. They didn’t just stop opponents. They dismantled them.
The Celtics’ defense has excelled under Mazzulla, finishing fourth or better in each of his three seasons, but has annually ranked among the bottom of the league in forcing turnovers. Dialing up the physicality would be one way to change that — and, after losing an abundance of rim protection over the offseason, Boston probably needs to alter its style.
“I think everything’s just situational, right?” Mazzulla said. “I think it just kind of depends on time, score, bonus, not bonus, quarters one through three versus quarter four. Are you winning? Are you not winning? I think there’s just so much of that. But at the same time, we want to develop a mindset of being a little bit more physical. And again, if there’s an upside to those potential fouls, then that’s good. If there’s not an upside to them, then you have to correct it.”
More aggressive defensive schemes won’t be the only change. A new pace was the biggest theme to emerge from the first week of practices. The Celtics clearly intend to play much faster. Mazzulla’s practices have been extremely challenging to prepare his players for the shift.
“I am tired,” acknowledged Pritchard. “But it’s good to push the body to these limits to get ready for the season. Definitely pushing ourselves.”
But how fast will the Celtics actually play? Are they hoping to race up and down the court like the Pacers? Are they planning to launch the earliest shot they can find like the Bulls? Or will their changes be more moderate? There’s a lot of space between the methodical style the Celtics played last season and the NBA’s fastest tempos.
The rotation won’t be revealed fully in the preseason, but Mazzulla should drop some hints about how he intends to use his new-look frontcourt. Neemias Queta could have the first chance to start, but Luka Garza and Chris Boucher will likely figure into the Celtics’ plans and a healthier Xavier Tillman is a wild card in the mix. If he is right physically after battling knee issues last season, his defensive awareness and versatility would help to fill some of the void left by the departures of Al Horford, Kristaps Porziņģis and Luke Kornet. It would be a major development if Tillman has improved his outside shooting significantly, as he says. But he will need to prove he made serious strides after shooting 25.2 percent on 3-point attempts over the first five years of his career.
Center isn’t the only positional unknown. Jayson Tatum’s injury left an opening at power forward, where Mazzulla could either go big (maybe Boucher or Tillman) or small (Hauser started 19 games last season when the Celtics were shorthanded). Either Pritchard or Anfernee Simons will likely start in Jrue Holiday’s vacated place, and the other guard will help to run bench units. Much of the hierarchy on the wing isn’t clear. Jordan Walsh, Baylor Scheierman and free-agent addition Josh Minott could all have a crack at earning opportunities behind Brown and Hauser. Derrick White recently listed Walsh and Minott among the standouts in camp.
“I think a lot of guys have had a lot of good time,” White said. “Like, Josh and Jordan I think have done a really good job of just making their presence felt defensively, and Anfernee has just gotten better and better each day. So we’re all just competing with one another and just trying to get better.”
Preseason results aren’t always telling, but some of the details can be. Last year, the Celtics averaged 52.6 3-point attempts during the preseason in a sign that they were ready to ramp up their already rare 3-point volume. They went on to set an NBA record with 48.2 3-point attempts per game, about six more than they had averaged while leading the league the previous season. Of course, they were already reliant on a heavy diet of outside shots before that. The increase in volume wasn’t a directional change.
Bigger changes are coming this season. The preseason should show that the Celtics aren’t the same old Celtics anymore. Brown wants his team sharp from the start.
“The intensity from day one is what I want to see,” Brown said. “We don’t want to ease into the season. I want to, from the first preseason game, let’s get right to it.”
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Jay King is a staff writer for The Athletic covering the Boston Celtics. He previously covered the team for MassLive for five years. He also co-hosts the “Anything Is Poddable” podcast. Follow Jay on Twitter @byjayking
