On Thursday evening, head coach Joe Mazzulla and the Boston Celtics improved their record on the 2023-24 season to an NBA-best mark of 35-10 with a blowout 143-110 road win over their Eastern Conference rivals, the Miami Heat. The game was of course a rematch of the last two Eastern Conference Finals, which the Celtics and Heat ended up splitting at one a piece, and Mazzulla was sure to keep things in perspective after Thursday's epic performance.

“This game is really good, but it means nothing in the grand scheme of things if we don't take the lessons that we need to and apply them to the next game,” said Mazzulla, per Celtics on NBC Sports Boston on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

Indeed, regular season wins don't amount to much for the Celtics these days. Boston has had no issues compiling great records year after year over the last several seasons, including last year under coach Mazzulla. The playoffs, however, have been a different story, as particularly last year, Boston found itself consistently underperforming against lesser competition, including (on paper at least) the Heat.

Reinforcements Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis were brought in this past offseason to help alleviate some of those concerns. However, it appears that Joe Mazzulla himself is well aware that no eyebrows will be raised for anything a team this talented does before the months of April, May, and most importantly, June.

Up next for the Celtics is a home game against the Los Angeles Clippers on January 27.