On Monday evening, head coach Joe Mazzulla and the Boston Celtics broke through to championship glory with a Game 5 win over Jason Kidd and the Dallas Mavericks to win the NBA Finals four games to one. With the victory, Mazzulla becomes the second youngest head coach in NBA history to win a championship at 35 years of age, and the Celtics are now NBA champions for the first time in 16 years–and in prime position to compete to stay at that position for years to come.
Mazzulla has long been known for his no nonsense attitude and some of his bizarre, bordering on self parodic methods, and on Monday evening, he nearly blew a gasket when he spotted one of his assistant coaches beginning to celebrate on the sidelines when there were still a few minutes left on the clock.
Recently, Mazzulla took to the Lowe Post podcast with ESPN's Zach Lowe to break down the incident.
“There's this clip on YouTube of an Oregon long distance runner, running like a 1600 meters maybe and he starts celebrating with like 70 meters to go and he's going like this [celebrating] and then he ends up getting passed and loses at the last second,” said Mazzulla, per the NBA on ESPN on YouTube. “So Dallas calls a timeout with like five and change to go, it's like 102-78 or something like that and one of my assistants is looking for his wife to start the process of it and I Just lose it, just lose it on him, which I I feel bad about it now but I was like bro no. So I’ll always remember that one.”
While fans may be growing nauseated by Mazzulla's frequent reference to video material (the Oregon runner, The Town, The Dark Knight, etc.), there's no arguing with the results, as the Celtics were the best team in the NBA this year by a country mile and cruised through the playoffs en route to the championship, perhaps somewhat surprisingly becoming the first team since the 2016-17 Golden State Warriors to finish the regular season with the most victories and then cap it off with a world championship.
A blossoming young coach
Mazzulla was largely viewed as the scapegoat last year after the Celtics crumbled against the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference Finals and ultimately lost the series in seven games. In that series, Mazzulla was thoroughly outclassed by Heat coach Erik Spoelstra and had his job security called into question heading into this year.
As for this season, two things can be true at once: Mazzulla did an admirable job of helping guide his team to a championship, and there probably isn't a coach in the NBA who wouldn't have won the championship with a roster this stacked and a postseason run so affected by opponent injuries. Still, there is something to be said about a team being so stacked that they don't need to necessarily rely on coaching wizardry to get things done, and the Celtics certainly embodied that notion this year.
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