Those comments weren’t coming from critics or haters directing anonymous insults toward the coach of the Boston Celtics. They came publicly from his own players who by all accounts absolutely adore him. And they are meant with all possible respect, especially now that those players — and everyone else — must call Mazzulla something else.
A champion.
A 35-year-old who was a head coach at the NCAA Division II level was taking over the Celtics in the fall of 2022 now becomes in charge of the best team in the NBA world.
Boston closed out the NBA title on Monday night, dusting the Dallas Mavericks 106-88 to finish off a five-game roll through the finals and cap the record 18th championship by the club.
In the process, Mazzulla, 35 years and 353 days old at the time of the Celtics’ Game 6 victory, became the ninth youngest coach to win a championship in the history of the NBA, and the youngest since Bill Russell won one with Boston as player/coach in 1969.
Since 1970, no coach has won an NBA title at a younger age. Mazzulla is younger than Hall of Famer Pat Riley, who previously held the record after leading the Lakers to the title in 1982 at the age of 37 years and 80 days old.
| Youngest coaches to win NBA title since 1970 | |||
| Year | Coach | Team | Coach’s age |
| 2024 | Joe Mazzulla | Celtics | 35 years, 353 days |
| 1982 | Pat Riley | Lakers | 37 years, 80 days |
| 1975 | Alvin Attles | Warriors | 38 years, 199 days |
| 2016 | Tyronn Lue | Cavaliers | 39 years, 47 days |
| 1974 | Tom Heinsohn | Celtics | 39 years, 259 days |
including the playoffs: Mazzulla’s record is 148-54 — a .729 winning percentage. Among all coaches with at least 200 games in the NBA, nobody has a better record than that.
“There’s nothing better than representing the Celtics,” Mazzulla said. “And being part of history.”
And when the 2024 NBA Finals presented by YouTube TV were over, yes, the famously stoic Mazzulla smiled.
“The thing you just can’t take for granted in the game today is a coach’s greatest gift is a group of guys that want to be coached, want to be led, that also empower themselves,” Mazzulla said earlier in the series. It’s more like, “So I guess, really at the end of the day, just appreciate the fact that we have an environment where learning and smoking is important, and getting better and developing is important. You can’t be a good coach if your players don’t let you.”
He’s the 37th coach in NBA history to win a title and one of seven from the Celtics’ bench, alongside Red Auerbach, Bill Russell, Tom Heinsohn, Bill Fitch, K.C. Jones, and Doc Rivers.
And there are other names the Celtics call him, too. Like wizard, for example. Mazzulla doesn’t hide his Christian faith, talks about three of his loves beyond family being Jesus, coffee, and jiu-jitsu is obsessed with things like international soccer and in his spare time leads teams to NBA titles.
“He’s really himself. He’s like authentic to himself. We all appreciate that,” Celtics guard Payton Pritchard said. “He’s not trying to be somebody he’s not. So, I think that’s kind of like the sicko side of it. There aren’t too many guys like him. Then the basketball genius, you can learn a lot from him as to how he sees the offensive side of things, the play calling, the game management, all that. He’s elite in that.”. “I have learned a lot from him, personally; I feel like our whole group has.”
Boston Red Sox manager Alex Cora can barely hide his feelings that the Celtics are going to be good for a long time. He’s tight with Brad Stevens, the front-office mastermind of the team; is familiar with Mazzulla somewhat well since he took over as coach. He clearly respects Mazzulla.
It’s not like Mazzulla struggled in Year 1 after being shoved into the job unexpectedly following the scandal that led to the Celtics parting ways with Ime Udoka; the Celtics did make Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals last season. Cora just thinks things were more suited to Mazzulla’s needs in Year 2, such as bringing in assistants like Charles Lee (the next coach of the Charlotte Hornets) and Sam Cassell.
“I do believe that with everything that they went through, with the head coaching part of it, and Joe last year being the head coach but not having his staff, I think it was kind of like an obstacle for him,” Cora said to reporters before a Red Sox game last week. “But he got the right people, they got the right coach.”
Mazzulla’s road to the NBA pinnacle could be charitably characterized as non-traditional, to say the least, and not only for the circumstances under which he got the job as Udoka’s replacement.
Mazzulla’s only previous experience as a head coach before taking over the Celtics was a two-year stint at Fairmont State in West Virginia, where he went 43-17 and made the NCAA Tournament in his second season. For Mazzulla—a New England native, from Rhode Island—the progression worked out through play at West Virginia, an assistant for the Celtics’ G League affiliate, taking over in charge at Fairmont State, then again getting hired by the Celtics in June 2019 to be on Stevens’ coaching staff.
They’re much alike, Mazzulla and Stevens. They don’t waste words. They don’t chase the spotlight. Ask them a question about themselves and it’s almost certainly not going to get any sort of peel-back-the-curtain answer. It’s not about them. It’s just about wins.
“When Joe won coach of the month, I was like, ‘Hey, congratulations,'” Celtics guard Derrick White said. “And he just looked at me and said, ‘Nobody cares.'”
The closest Mazzulla likely came to getting a head-coaching gig in the NBA before getting promoted by Boston came in 2022, when he interviewed with the Utah Jazz. The Jazz hired Will Hardy, and Mazzulla said they made the right decision. But when he looked back at that process, there was one thing about his interview that Mazzulla hated. He wore a suit. “They’re useless,” he said.
To be clear, that’s not where Mazzulla believes he blew that interview. The questions the Jazz asked were pretty boilerplate. In essence, they wanted to hear how Mazzulla would answer for being a young coach — actually younger than a few NBA players, himself.
He didn’t have a great answer. But now, nobody will have to ask him that question again. Mazzulla answered it once and for all Monday night. He can lead a team to the top of the NBA world. And the Celtics’ 18th banner will be raised this fall, and that’s more than enough for him.
“You get very few chances in life to be great and you get very few chances in life to carry on the ownership and the responsibility of what these banners are and all the great people, all the great players that came here,” Mazzulla said. “When you have few chances in life, you just have to take the bull by the horns, and you gotta run with it. And our guys ran with it”.