DALLAS — The difference between a weirdo and a genius is winning.
After enduring intense criticism, Joe Mazzulla is now experiencing a positive: praise for his basketball acumen. At 35, Mazzulla is one win away from breaking Bill Russell’s record as the youngest coach in history to win an NBA title.
Consider that turning point for a moment. Just a year ago, people in Boston wanted him fired. He was initially serving as interim coach after Ime Udoka was shockingly suspended for having an “intimate relationship with a female staff member,” according to ESPN. Udoka was popular among players. He brought a defense-first identity to the Celtics and led them to the 2022 NBA Finals.
So when Mazzulla’s Celtics were blown out by the Heat in the 2023 Eastern Conference Finals, the vultures quickly swarmed in. It had to be Mazzulla’s fault, right? The players hadn’t changed, just the coach. The blame was quickly directed at an easy target on the sidelines: Mazzulla. Mazzulla was an unpolished speaker, with a cold demeanor that made him seem unapproachable from afar.
How do players connect with coaches like that?
If suspending Udoka was the right thing to do to protect the organization, it was a bad move for basketball.
No one says that anymore. The Celtics won 64 games in the regular season and are 15-2 in the playoffs. With a win on the road on Friday night, they could sweep the Mavericks in the NBA Finals and wrap up the most dominant postseason record by an Eastern Conference team since the 1983 Sixers.
“Even taking on the interim role was difficult. [for Mazzulla]”I’m not making excuses, but him taking over the position just added a little bit more uncertainty about what we’re going to do going forward,” Jaylen Brown said. [coaching] staff.
“I feel like since the start of the year he’s found his footing a little bit more. He’s great. He’s organised. He seems a lot calmer and it shows with the team. Joe’s mentality is great.” [Thursday]One of my favorite things he said was, ‘Nothing is fair in war. You either survive or you don’t.’ That resonates with me because I love that kind of stuff.”
Admittedly, Mazzulla remains a bit unconventional. Or unorthodox. Or, in Derrick White’s words, “eccentric.” He incorporates jiu-jitsu, mixed martial arts and football into his coaching. Before Game 3, for example, Mazzulla showed the Celtics the UFC light heavyweight championship bout between Alex Pereira and Jamahal Hill.
He wanted to emphasize that despite a 2-0 series lead, there is no room for complacency.
“You can see Pereira getting hit in the testicles. [then] Look at the referee and knock [Hill] “You’re out after five seconds,” Mazzulla said, “so it’s all about your approach to what’s going to happen to you and how you respond to it. The closer you come to hitting someone, the more likely you are to get hit.”
At another moment during the NBA Finals, Mazzulla delivered a brilliant, rapid-fire, robotic run-through of the first quarter of the game he had just played, sounding like a play-by-play computer, even though he hadn’t had time to review the footage before the press conference.
Mazzulla said Thursday that recalling memories helps him clear his emotions. I wondered if he got emotional after the Celtics won, or if he automatically remembered the first 10 plays of the second quarter.
“It’s all about improving your memory, understanding why, and improving your awareness of your environment,” Mazzulla says. “If you don’t have the facts, if you don’t understand your environment and your current situation, you can’t make decisions and you can’t eliminate emotions.”
That’s great as long as things are going well — and they are going very well for the Celtics — but Mazzulla seems to understand that could easily change.
“In America, nothing is enough,” Mazzulla said. “It’s all about what can I do for myself right now?”
Now could be the time on Friday night when Mazzulla becomes the youngest NBA championship coach in history.
