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Bobby Krivitsky: Caleb Grill on Joe Mazzulla: “I just like how intense he is. How straight to the point he is, and there's no cutting corners with him. And I like how straightforward he is with everything.”
Bobby Krivitsky: I asked Amile Jefferson if he’s getting feedback from people like Joe Mazzulla, Jon Scheyer, and Coach K during his opportunity as the Celtics’ Summer League head coach. “All those people you named are really in my corner and have been super helpful to me in my career. “Jon's one of my closest friends. He's really smart. He's an amazing coach. So as much as I can talk to him; the feedback that I get from Joe is always really good, and he's been amazing to my growth and my career. “So especially those two, being able to talk to them before games, after games, just making sure I'm good and knowing that I have their support is really helpful to me.”
Daniel Donabedian: Joe Mazzulla on how his in-season fighting/training helps him connect with his players: “I can go through the season and not have any physically taxing moments and the players are physically drained…The more I can meet them where they’re at and put (myself) in that position, I think it helps…understanding what they go through.”
As Derrick White and Jordan Walsh went through a workout on one of the Cox Pavilion courts Saturday morning, head coach Joe Mazzulla detailed the respect he has for Brown, what Boston will miss most about him and the need to create a new path forward without him. After 10 highly successful seasons with Brown, Boston will take on a different look with Paul George, Mitchell Robinson and Mike Conley now on the roster. “There needs to be a grieving process for losing not just a player in Jaylen, but a person in Jaylen,” Mazzulla said in an interview with The Athletic. “There needs to be a grieving process that this guy, what he has done on the court and what he’s done in the community and what he’s done for the city of Boston, there should be a grieving process. But the … gray area is throughout that loss, you’re also gaining.”
Mazzulla said he empathized with Brown throughout the situation. “Honestly, when some of the trade stuff was starting to happen, there were other guys on our roster that were impacted emotionally as well because their names were in it as well,” Mazzulla said. “I think the thing that’s different is obviously having a respect and an understanding of what Jaylen has done for the Celtics for 10 years. So, there’s a difference between maybe a young guy going through something and a guy like Jaylen, who has accomplished so much and done what he’s done for the organization going through it. And so, you definitely have a higher sense of empathy for that.”
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This summer, Mazzulla has taken that commitment to another level; it’s mid-July, and he has already spent time with four different players in four different parts of the world: Jordan Walsh in Texas, Baylor Scheierman in Nebraska, Hugo Gonzalez in Spain, and Neemias Queta in Portugal.
Walsh said he learned things about Mazzulla he never knew, and that the rare quality time was valuable. “Jordan and I had a great conversation, just kind of understanding how he grew up,” Mazzulla said. “But really, it’s not even about learning about that. I think guys are more comfortable in their home atmosphere. So, even the types of conversations that you’re having are more comfortable, and it might spark different questions, different conversations if you’re on their home territory. We had deeper conversations because we were in a more vulnerable situation.”
Walsh was (positively) caught off guard when Mazzulla first initiated the visit. “I was definitely surprised,” Walsh recalled with a smile. “Like, what the hell does Joe want? But it was cool. It was so cool that he was making that kind of effort to come see me.” Walsh joked he kept Mazzulla out of the trouble: “I kept him in the good part of the city, where it’s good food, good people. He didn’t get to experience the other side. Maybe one day.”
In early July, Mazzulla was on the other side of the world, supporting Hugo Gonzalez in the World Cup qualifying tournament in Madrid, Spain. “We went out to dinner a couple times,” Gonzalez said. “He went to every practice — so really, really grateful that he was willing to be there.” Knowing that Mazzulla is a big soccer fan, Gonzalez took him to the Bernabéu, the second-largest football arena in the country, as well as other notable venues. “I try to show him where I’ve been eight or nine years of my life,” Gonzalez said. “The ones who built me as a player, and he wanted to know it, so I just showed him Valdebebas, [which] is like the Auerbach Center of Real Madrid.”
At the beginning of June, Mazzulla flew to Lisbon to work out with Neemias Queta in the gym where he first learned how to play the game he now excels at. That came just a few weeks before Queta signed a long-term extension with the franchise. Mazzulla rebounded for Queta at the Futebol Clube Barreirense, the first club in which Queta ever played basketball. “It’s just surreal,” Queta said. “A couple years ago, if you had said an NBA coach is coming to that specific gym just to see me and get to know me, I would have been like, ‘You gotta be kidding me.’ Joe makes sure — he wants to make that extra step, extra effort, just to make sure you feel comfortable. And I think that’s one of the reasons why he’s such a good coach. He worries about people, and that’s why I’m running through a wall for him.”
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More than anything, Mazzulla credits the five-time All-Star for making him better. Speaking to a group of reporters just a few minutes earlier for the first time since the trade, Mazzulla shared how difficult the trade was and stressed that Brown made him a better coach: “I know that for a fact.” “Something like that is going to be difficult,“ Mazzulla said. “But I think if you could just get through it and act as if nothing happened, then that’s when I think that you’re not in it for the right reasons.” As we later sat on the gymnasium sidelines, I asked Mazzulla to elaborate on the notion that Brown made him better. “The biggest thing was just his competitiveness,” Mazzulla said. “He wasn’t afraid to push you. That was for teammates. That was for me. That was for people. He wasn’t afraid to hold you accountable to a higher standard. And when you have the opportunity to coach guys like that, it just makes you better.”
![“I told him [the fouling] was a compliment,” Mazzulla …](https://sportsdata.usatoday.com/gcdn/content-pipeline-sports-images/sports2/nba/players/1076265.png?format=png8&auto=webp&quality=85,75&width=140)
So, when it came time to offer Robinson a contract last week, it was a full-circle moment. In that free agency call, the two discussed Mazzulla’s Hack-a-Mitch approach. “I told him [the fouling] was a compliment,” Mazzulla said. “He was so effective when he’s on the floor. We had to do what we could to take him off the floor. So, now we have to be able to use his effectiveness to make us better. And I think it gives us a ton of depth at the center spot where two guys have done so many great things for us, Neemi and Luka [Garza]. And now we have another guy that can help us.”
Bobby Krivitsky: Joe Mazzulla on Jaylen Brown: “It’s not a black and white thing. There's a feeling that goes into it. There's an emotion that goes into it. There's a processing pattern that goes into it. “The quicker you can get to — it's just a level of gratitude. He made me a better coach. I know that for a fact. The way he pushed me, the way he pushed himself, the way he pushed the locker room. He made me a better coach, and that's what you focus on.”
Taylor Snow: Fun fact: Mike Conley and Joe Mazzulla made their college debuts on the same day – Nov. 10, 2006 Mike and OSU beat VMI, 107-69 Joe and WVU beat Mount St. Mary’s 50-42