LAS VEGAS — Joe Mazzulla sits again in his chair on the nook of apply as music blasts. It’s Celtics Summer season League, and a brand new crop of gamers are starting their journey to the professionals.
Some, like first-round draft picks Hugo Gonzalez and Chris Cenac Jr, are available in with loads of expectations and fanfare. Others are hoping to interrupt via, to make some form of title for themselves, to get their dream alternative.
Because the 16-player Summer season League squad wraps up apply, Neemias Queta is partaking in a rigorous exercise with the Celtics assistant coaches. The Portuguese middle is just some days faraway from signing a life-changing contract, a 4-year, $56 million extension that’s the results of years of tireless work.
Fittingly, as he walks into the gymnasium, he shakes practically each reporter’s hand. We every bathe him with congratulations. In any case, it’s not day-after-day {that a} participant who jumped round from two-way contract to two-way contract will get that form of long-term payout. Simply two years in the past, Queta was a Summer season League participant himself, hoping to someday develop into an impactful rotation participant.
Exterior of Queta’s entrance, it appears like a standard day of apply: Mazzulla is within the background, chatting with some workers members. Queta is engaged on his put up strikes with assistant coach Tony Dobbins. A smattering of assistants work with gamers on their ability improvement.
However the actuality is that it’s been something however a standard couple of weeks for the NBA’s most storied franchise.
Simply over per week in the past, the entrance workplace made the tough and highly-scrutinized choice to commerce Jaylen Brown, the staff’s longest-tenured participant, the Finals MVP who through the years grew to become a staple within the Boston neighborhood. It’s a choice that Brad Stevens fielded dozens of questions on in a 40-minute press convention earlier within the week.
“That is the choice we got here to,” Stevens stated, “and clearly, in lots of circles that’s not well-liked, and we understood that coming into it.”
However misplaced within the shuffle of the Brown commerce was every little thing else that passed off over the previous couple of weeks — the Celtics signed veteran free brokers Mitchell Robinson and Mike Conley, acquired Paul George, and prolonged Neemias Queta and Ron Harper Jr long-term, two tenacious gamers who started their tenures with the group within the G-League.
Additionally they drafted two rookies — Chris Cenac Jr. and Dillon Mitchell — whose additions to the franchise bought buried amid all of the commerce hysteria.
I sat down with Mazzulla to speak via all of it: via the defining transfer that despatched Jaylen Brown to the rival Philadelphia 76ers, via the offseason additions he hopes assist the staff finally obtain its loftiest targets, and thru his personal journey as, consider it or not, one of many NBA’s longer-tenured coaches.
That is the primary in a two-part collection diving into the Celtics coach’s mindset on the heels of a disappointing playoff exit, his ideas on the staff’s latest additions, and rather more.
Joe Mazzulla and the Celtics teaching workers appeared inwards
The truth is that the Jaylen Brown commerce got here on the heels of a season that led to simple disappointment. The Celtics held a commanding 3-1 collection lead over the Philadelphia 76ers, however misplaced three straight video games, turning into the primary group in franchise historical past to blow a 3-1 lead.
As such, he and his teaching workers have been handily criticized all summer time.
Once I ask about that flood of criticism — a pointy departure from the flowers they obtained throughout an surprising 56-win marketing campaign — Mazzulla interrupts me.
“As we ought to be,” Mazzulla stated. “That’s deserved criticism. One, you don’t finish your season on a loss. Two, you’re up three video games to at least one. You’ve got to have the ability to win a sport, and we don’t. In order that begins with me.”
The Celtics notably have the very same teaching workers again for a 3rd consecutive 12 months. That workers, headlined by coaches like Sam Cassell, Dobbins, DJ MacLeay, Matt Reynolds, and others, has been working tirelessly this summer time to determine the place issues went mistaken within the playoffs, and the way they will develop from there. It’s a course of that started nearly instantly after the playoff exit.
“It begins with me,” Mazzulla stated. “The place can I get higher? The place did I fail within the final two postseasons? The place do I’ve to be higher? After which it trickles all the way down to asking them the identical questions.”
“You must be sincere with your self. You must have people who find themselves sincere round you, and I don’t suppose I’ve ever been round a bunch of fellows who’re extra sincere with one another. And we argue continually. A very powerful factor is attending to the suitable reply.“
Apart from the self-reflection, the Celtics teaching workers had a busy summer time of their very own, with a number of rising as finalists for NBA head-coaching jobs. Dobbins was a finalist for the Dallas Mavericks head coach job, and fellow assistant coach Tyler Lashbrook was a finalist for the Portland Path Blazers job, amongst others.
Mazzulla welcomed all of it.
“We had 4 coaches have head teaching interviews this summer time, and two different guys have interviews at different jobs,” Mazzulla stated. “And so I believe these are little affirmations that the method of what we’re doing is nice.”
Joe Mazzulla emphasizes Jaylen Brown’s competitiveness
Mazzulla smiled once I requested him about Brown, whom he labored with for 4 seasons as head coach. Collectively, they gained nearly 300 video games and finally hoisted the coveted Larry O’Brien trophy.
Greater than something, Mazzulla credit the five-time All-Star for making him higher. Talking to a bunch of reporters just some minutes earlier for the primary time for the reason that commerce, Mazzulla shared how tough the commerce was and harassed that Brown made him a greater coach: “I do know that for a truth.”
“One thing like that’s going to be tough,“ Mazzulla stated. “However I believe in case you may simply get via it and act as if nothing occurred, then that’s once I suppose that you just’re not in it for the suitable causes.”
As we later sat on the gymnasium sidelines, I requested Mazzulla to elaborate on the notion that Brown made him higher.
“The largest factor was simply his competitiveness,” Mazzulla stated. “He wasn’t afraid to push you. That was for teammates. That was for me. That was for folks. He wasn’t afraid to carry you accountable to a better customary. And when you will have the chance to educate guys like that, it simply makes you higher.”
What does Mazzulla hope Celtics followers don’t miss after they mirror on Brown’s tenure in Boston?
There’s the well-chronicled off-court work that can perpetually outline his tenure. There’s the 2024 championship, wherein Brown raised practically each side of his sport to its greatest model.
There’s the 2025-2026 season, wherein he constructed a official MVP case for the primary time in his profession.
“I actually hope folks noticed the competitiveness,” Mazzulla stated. “I hope folks noticed the management. The management bounce that he took this 12 months… I hope folks [were able to] see that.”
“What you see is what you get from Jaylen: it’s competitiveness, it’s respect. And he desires to win.”
Taking advantage of the Celtics’ offseason additions
With Jaylen Brown in Philadelphia, the Celtics teaching workers has been tasked with determining the best way to get probably the most out of gamers like Mitchell Robinson and Paul George.
Brown isn’t going to get replaced — that’s not the purpose — however Mazzulla’s job is to determine the best way to get probably the most o
“You’re eliminating strengths [in Jaylen], however you’re bringing in new strengths,” he stated. “And that’s the half that we’ve got to leverage as a workers and as a staff.”
“Bringing within the energy of Paul George, bringing within the energy of Mike Conley, guys which have overwhelmed us in video games, and guys which have performed high-level basketball for a very long time. Bringing within the energy of Mitchell Robinson, who has been one of the impactful gamers when he’s on the ground. And so we simply must have an understanding of what these guys’ strengths are, and the way will we give them a possibility to make us higher?”
Robinson is the Celtics’ marquee free company signing; the longtime New York Knicks middle is a historic rebounder who has lengthy been a thorn on the Celtics’ aspect.
When the Knicks and Celtics confronted off within the 2025 playoffs, Joe Mazzulla ordered his gamers to routinely ship Robinson — a notoriously poor free-throw shooter — to the foul line to try to get him off the court docket. No matter that technique, the Knicks outscored the Celtics by 46 factors in Robinson’s minutes that collection.
So, when it got here time to supply Robinson a contract final week, it was a full-circle second. In that free company name, the 2 mentioned Mazzulla’s Hack-a-Mitch strategy.
“I instructed him [the fouling] was a praise,” Mazzulla stated. “He was so efficient when he’s on the ground. We needed to do what we may to take him off the ground. So, now we’ve got to have the ability to use his effectiveness to make us higher. And I believe it provides us a ton of depth on the middle spot the place two guys have achieved so many nice issues for us, Neemi and Luka [Garza]. And now we’ve got one other man that may assist us.”
Neemias Queta, Ron Harper Jr see their work get rewarded
For Celtics followers, a number of the greatest information of the offseason got here when Queta signed his extension, and Ron Harper Jr. signed his personal $4-year, $14 million contract.
It’s one thing that was gratifying to Mazzulla, too.
“They put their head down, and so they work,” he stated. “And I believe it’s a testomony to the entrance workplace for locating guys that may influence successful, after which it’s a testomony to the participant improvement workers, after which it’s a testomony to the gamers with how exhausting they work.”
There have been distinct moments wherein it grew to become clear to the Celtics head coach that Queta and Harper Jr. had what it took to make it on this league. For Harper Jr., it was the way in which he was in a position to crash the glass and defend in a February highway sport towards the Houston Rockets wherein he was tasked with guarding Kevin Durant.
For Queta, it was the way in which he embraced the illustrious accountability of being the Celtics’ beginning middle from the get-go.
“They each simply confirmed moments,” Mazzulla stated.
Now, each gamers can be Celtics long-term.
On prime of these additions, the Celtics added two rookies by way of the draft: Chris Cenac Jr and Dillon Mitchell. They weren’t projecting Cenac could be accessible at choose No. 27, however he had slipped via the primary spherical.
“Clearly, didn’t anticipate to get him at this level, and I believe that’s the dialog that you’ve got with Chris of like, ‘Hey, you’re right here for a motive,’” he stated. “One, you have to discover out why you bought to us, and you have to use that as leverage, and you have to use that as data to develop into one of the best participant that you just probably can.”
Mazzulla identified that Cenac and Mitchell come to him after being coached by “high-level” coaches: Cenac was led by Kalvin Sampson at Houston and Mitchell by Rick Pitino at St. John’s. He expects that can make their adjustment to the NBA’s depth somewhat simpler.
“I believe that basically helps guys on the subsequent stage, whenever you’ve been coached by nice coaches,” Mazzulla stated. “I believe it makes it simpler for them.”
Wanting forward at Yr 5 in Boston
As Mazzulla prepares for his fifth season as head coach of the Celtics, he feels extra gratitude for the job than ever earlier than.
“The gratitude [grows] the longer you get to remain, as a result of you recognize there’s a lot turnover,” he stated.
He’s not mistaken: remarkably, solely six NBA coaches have been with their franchise for longer than Mazzulla has.
As such, he’s been finding out veteran coaches like Erik Spoelstra, Gregg Popovich, Steve Kerr — embellished coaches who spent their whole teaching careers with one group — in addition to New York Knicks head coach Mike Brown, who has moved round a number of occasions, however discovered success wherever he’s gone.
What’s allowed them to be efficient for therefore lengthy?
“It’s not alleged to go a method,” Mazzulla stated. “You simply must get higher, and you must be round nice folks. And I’m lucky sufficient to do this right here.”
The second a part of my unique dialog with Joe Mazzulla can be out on Monday — a deeper dive into the distinctive approach the Celtics head coach has spent his offseason.
