On Sunday afternoon, the Boston Celtics picked up an impressive home victory over the Denver Nuggets despite playing without both Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis. The win brought the Celtics' rare two-game losing skid to a halt and gave them a boost of confidence as the season approaches its final stretch.

Of course, priority number one for any team facing the Nuggets is figuring out what to do about Nikola Jokic, the reigning league MVP and 2023 NBA Finals MVP.

After the game, Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla had an interesting take on his team's approach to combatting the Joker.

“We didn’t talk anything about Jokic in the gameplan. It’s not about him… you don’t really talk about him in a gameplan. You talk about all the other stuff that you can control,” said Mazzulla, per Noa Dalzell of CelticsBlog on X.

Jokic stuffed the stat sheet on Sunday, piling up 20 points, 14 rebounds, and nine assists, but he didn't get a whole lot of help from his teammates, save for Jamal Murray and Christian Braun.

Meanwhile, the Celtics were led by Jaylen Brown, who scored 22 points on the afternoon.

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A big win for the Celtics

Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic (15) defended by Boston Celtics center Luke Kornet (40) during the second half at TD Garden.
Paul Rutherford-Imagn Images

Celtics fans had been growing a bit restless over the last couple of days with consecutive losses to the Detroit Pistons and the Cleveland Cavaliers. The second of those two was particularly alarming, as Boston raced out to a 25-3 lead but still was unable to secure a victory against undoubtedly their biggest competition in the Eastern Conference.

However, although they didn't play perfectly on Sunday, the Celtics still did enough to secure the victory against one of the best teams in the NBA, thanks in large part to a strong defensive performance and some timely shotmaking, even on a day when Jayson Tatum didn't have it going.

The Celtics will now have a couple of days off before they hit the floor again on Wednesday night at home against the Portland Trail Blazers. That will be followed up by additional home matchups against the Philadelphia 76ers and the Los Angeles Lakers.