Throughout the Celtics’ playoff run last spring, Phil Pressey would slip into Joe Mazzulla’s pregame news conferences, sit in the back of the room and listen to how Boston’s head coach answered questions from reporters.

At the time, it looked like curiosity. Turns out, it was job prep.

This offseason, the Celtics installed Pressey — a former Boston point guard who joined Mazzulla’s coaching staff in 2023 — as the new head coach of the franchise’s G League affiliate in Maine.

“Since I first retired when I was 30, 31, I made a commitment to focus on personal development,” Pressey, 34, said Friday in a video conference. “If you’re growing on the daily, whenever an opportunity happens, you’re going to be prepared. So any opportunity that I had to study Joe Mazzulla, study other coaches, tak

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