Celtics ‘sicko’ coach Joe Mazzulla one game away from proving critics wrong

The difference between weirdo and genius is winning.

Joe Mazzulla, after enduring a firestorm of criticism, is now experiencing the positive part — the praise of his basketball acumen as the 35-year-old sits one win away from breaking Bill Russell’s record as the youngest coach ever to win an NBA title.

Think about that turnaround for a second. Only a year ago, Bostonians wanted him fired. He was their interim coach at first following the shock suspension of Ime Udoka, who engaged in “an intimate relationship with a female staff member,” according to ESPN. Udoka was popular among the players. He brought a defense-first identity that carried the Celtics to the 2022 NBA Finals.

Coach Joe Mazzulla reacts after a play during the Celtic’s Game 3 win over the Mavericks.USA TODAY Sports via Reuters Con
So when Mazzulla’s Celtics bombed in the 2023 Eastern Conference Finals against the Heat, the vultures quickly circled. It must’ve been Mazzulla’s fault, right? The players didn’t change, just the coach. The blame went straight to the sideline to the easy target, Mazzulla, who was an unpolished public speaker with a cold demeanor and looked, from a distance, unapproachable.

How could the players connect with a coach like that?

If suspending Udoka was the right thing for protecting the organization, it was the bad move for basketball.

Jayson Tatum talk with Joe Mazzulla during the fourth quarter of the Celtics’ Game 3 victory.Getty Images
Nobody is saying these things now. The Celtics won 64 games in the regular season and are 15-2 in the playoffs. A win on the road Friday night and they’ll sweep the Mavericks in the NBA Finals, capping the most dominant postseason run for an Eastern Conference team since the 1983 Sixers.

“Just being in the interim role was tough [for Mazzulla],” Jaylen Brown said. “Even though we weren’t making any excuses, but him inheriting that position, it was a little bit more of uncertainty about what we were doing going forward. It wasn’t his [coaching] staff.

“Now I feel like he’s gotten his feet under him a little bit more, even the start of this year. He’s been excellent. He’s been organized. He seems like he’s been a lot more comfortable, and it’s showed in our team. Joe’s mentality is fantastic. Even [Thursday], one of my favorite quotes he said, he was like, ‘There’s no such thing as fair in a war. Either you survive or you don’t.’ Just that resonates with me because I like stuff like that.”

To be clear, Mazzulla’s still a little weird. Or unconventional. Or, in the words of Derrick White, “A sicko.” He incorporates jiu-jitsu, MMA and soccer into his coaching. Before Game 3, for instance, Mazzulla showed the Celtics a UFC light heavyweight championship fight between Alex Pereira and Jamahal Hill.

He wanted to underscore how they can’t let up despite a 2-0 series lead.

Joe Mazzulla, center, talks with his players during the first half of Game 2 of the NBA Finals.AP
“You see Pereira gets hit in the nuts [then] looks at the referee, and knocks [Hill] out five seconds later,” Mazzulla said. “So it’s the approach to what happens to you and how you handle it — the closer you are to beating someone, the closer you are to getting your ass kicked.”

In another moment during the NBA Finals, Mazzulla impressively, swiftly and robotically reeled off sequences from the first quarter of the game he just played. There was no time to review the film before the press conference, yet Mazzulla was like a play-by-play computer.

On Thursday, he said recall helps him remove emotion. It made me wonder if Mazzulla will get emotional after the Celtics win a championship, or if he’d rather auto recall the first 10 plays of the second quarter.

“Just building retention and learning how to understand the why and building an awareness to your environment,” Mazzulla said. “You can’t make decisions and eliminate emotion if you don’t have the facts and you don’t have an understanding of your environment and what’s going on.”

It’s great as long as it works. And it’s been working quite well for the Celtics. But Mazzulla seems to understand that can change very easily.

“In America, nothing is ever good enough,” Mazzulla said. “It’s about what can you do for me right now.”

On Friday night, the ‘right now’ could be Mazzulla crowned as the youngest NBA championship coach.