How Joe Mazzulla delivered his Celtics predators to a basketball apex originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston
“That’s a Komodo dragon?”
Joe Mazzulla has arrived for our Media Day chat in late September, and before we can even explain the shenanigans we have planned — projecting images to spawn conversation with players and coaches on an otherwise tedious day — he’s the one asking questions.
Four different animals, including a killer whale and, yes, a Komodo dragon, are projected on a screen in the theatre we are filming in, and Mazzulla is eager to explain the correlation between the 2024-25 Celtics and apex predators.
“You take a look at this ridiculous narrative that people use, because it’s so easy, of ‘hunted versus the hunter,’ right?” said Mazzulla. “And I think so many times in society, we try to make things either/or. But it’s a both. And you’re never not just one.
“If you take a look at a lion, people may think of a lion as never hunted. But if they let their guard down, if they find an oasis to where there’s hippos and they let their guard down and they’re going to drink, a hippo is going to try to attack it.
“So, there’s a situation of, yes, you may feel like you’re the toughest or the best or the most fiercest, but at any point in time, if you’re not vigilant, you could die. And so I think there’s just a lot of great lessons that can be learned from it.”
And does Mazzulla have a favorite apex predator?
“Killer whales,” he responds immediately. “I think that they are the epitome of the apex predator, right? But, at the same time, they have the humility to make sure they hunt in packs. So that kind of goes to, when you’re trying to build a team, it’s like, ‘I know I’m the best, but I need people around me in order to be even better.’
“So when you see nature live that out — I know I could go kill that seal on my own, but I need the pod to come with me so we could do it tactically. And the tactical approach towards taking down their adversaries is a rather detailed one. Like, there was one the other day where they purposely beached themselves to act like they’re being stranded and then they kill the sea lion.
“So what are you willing to do to go after success and making sure you don’t skip steps in that process? The animal kingdom is about as natural as you can get it when it comes to hierarchy and when it comes to decisions you make, either bringing you closer to keeping your life or decisions bringing you closer to dying. And you’ve got to make the right decisions more times than not.”
Just like that, all the talk about how Mazzulla loves showing animal videos to his players makes complete sense — just as his players all said it would, even if they never imagined watching so much National Geographic at the NBA level.
“I think what I love about [Mazzulla] is how unorthodox he is,” says Kristaps Porzingis. “All the videos that he shows us that are either from a different sport, or might not even be humans, it could be like some whale or something, you know?
“At first you’re kind of like, what’s going on here? What is this? But you you learn the stuff that he’s into, and you learn to love it too. Now everything he puts on, we’re kind of like, ‘OK, what’s the message here?’ Right away we start thinking. And Joe is just — he’s like a strong personality and a little bit different, in a good way. I think that’s why he’s such a good leader for us.”
In retrospect, maybe it’s fitting that Mazzulla got thrust into one of the more uncomfortable coaching changes in recent memory. Installed as interim coach after Ime Udoka’s dismissal near the start of training camp in 2022, Mazzulla navigated a bunch of early bumps in the road without ever losing sight of steering his talented team towards the ultimate prize.
“The most Joe thing to me is, he gets to the end result he’s looking for. How he gets there, I would say, might be more unique than others,” said Celtics president of basketball operations Brad Stevens, the man who installed Mazzulla as coach and stood behind him through tiny patches of turbulence.
“But he gets to the end result and he’s always thinking about how to motivate. He’s always thinking about how to get the most out of people. He’s never thinking about what just happened, good or bad. He’s always thinking about how we’re gonna take this and we’re gonna become the best that we can be.
“He’s the right person to lead this team in this moment. And I thought he was the right person to lead us to the last moment.”
It’s early February and Xavier Tillman’s world has just been turned upside down. The 25-year-old big man is being traded from the struggling, injury-depleted Grizzlies to the championship-chasing Celtics and he’s trying to wrap his head around everything, including having to move his wife and three young children to a new city.
Then came a call from his new coach.
“First thing he said to me was, ‘Don’t be weird,’” Tillman recalled with a laugh. “That’s his opening line: ‘Don’t be weird.’”
That’s Joe. He’s direct. He makes things uncomfortable, even when telling someone else to not make things uncomfortable.
“I was like, ‘Hmm, what does that mean for me? Like, why do I not be weird?’” said Tillman. “And I know I take myself too serious sometimes. So that’s exactly what I thought about. Like, let me like just kind of chill into this versus me like trying to come in and try to assert myself like I’d normally do …
“Yeah, ‘Don’t be weird, man.’ Just come in here and just, this is basketball. I’m like, ‘All right, all right.’”
When players visit our Media Day setup, our visual prompt is a photo of a bemused Mazzulla with the caption, “What’s the Most Joe thing?” The photo alone spawns wide smiles. It also leads to a whole bunch of stories about just how unconventional Mazzulla can be. How much he loves to push people outside their comfort zones. How different his mind works compared to most coaches.
But there are stories that offer a different side of Mazzulla, too. A side that we don’t often get to see on the sidelines. Al Horford, who is two years older than his head coach, invited Mazzulla on a recent trip to the Dominican Republic where Horford would be toasted for Boston’s championship season. And, well, we’ll just let Horford explain what happened.
“I had a basketball clinic down in the Dominican,” said Horford. “That was part of the things I wanted to do, a little camp for kids. And we were gonna do it outdoors and it got rained out, so we had to move it inside. So we did it in a much tighter space, but we were able to do it. The kids loved it. They had a great time.
“I didn’t know this but one of the coaches that was there told Joe that he wanted him to give another session, another practice. So the next day, we go and see the president [Luis Abinader] and we have our moment and everything. And then afterwards, we go our separate ways. And [Mazzulla] went back to the neighborhood in the Dominican, in La Romana, specifically. It’s a city there and he went back and gave — he’s not gonna talk about this, nobody knows this — but he gave a two-hour clinic to a bunch of kids down there.
“There was no cameras, there was no anything. And he just went down there with the people and just gave a free basketball clinic and just talked about fundamentals of the game. So it just speaks of the type of great person and leader that he is.
“Yes, he is very unpredictable. People see all these other things. There’s also, I feel like, the caring factor from him. And it’s a real thing. You can see that he cares about his players. He cares about you as a person. And that’s somebody that you can respect. We can rally around him. He’s genuine. And when he speaks, we listen.”
From Mazzulla’s perspective, getting a chance to join Horford on that trip was as satisfying as getting Horford to the finish line of an NBA title.
“When we lost two years ago (in the 2022 Finals) — everybody thinks there’s pressure winning in Boston — the pressure for me came in giving Al what I think he deserves and what he’s worked for his entire life,” said Mazzulla. “It took a while for me to forgive myself that we weren’t able to do it for him that year.
“Everybody sees these guys as players. But seeing them as like competitive guys who put everything on the line every day, you want to win for them. And everybody’s at a different point in their life. There are guys that may have more years than not. But for the player in general, they give up everything. To be a part of a culmination of that is a gift.”
Even as players share humorous stories about how unconventional their coach is, there is one thing that is obvious: Mazzulla has their full respect. He has earned total buy-in from the locker room and won them over, largely, with his authenticity.
“I don’t remember someone that actively finds things that make someone uncomfortable,” said Derrick White. “Or things that — everybody else is like, ‘Oh, that’s not great.’ And he wants it. It’ll be a rainy day and he’s like, ‘Oh, great day outside. This is amazing!’ Or, especially towards the end of the season, it’s getting nice out and he’s like, ‘I just can’t stand this.’ He just goes out of his way to be uncomfortable, to keep pushing the boundaries.
“I just love playing for him.”
White famously showed up for Boston’s title parade wearing a shirt that read, “Nobody Cares.” That was Mazzulla’s response when White congratulated him on winning Coach of the Month last season.
Everyone has a story about Mazzulla’s unique nature. Jayson Tatum seems genuinely flabbergasted while detailing just how excited Mazzulla was when Tatum drew two DNPs at the Olympics. When rookie Jordan Walsh was sulking after a rough summer league showing, Mazzulla told him you’ve got “one [expletive] to give” and then you’ve got to move on. Walsh has responded with his best stretch as a pro this preseason.
Knowing his new coach’s love of combat sports, camp invite Lonnie Walker tried to engage Mazzulla about watching a big boxing match and Mazzulla responded bluntly with how he, “doesn’t watch pillow fights.”
Added Walker: “That was about 8 in the morning, just to start it up.”
But his players now love the quirkiness.
“He’s intense … and very different. But I feel like that’s what makes him so good,” said Payton Pritchard. “He knows he’s different, so he leans into it more than trying to become something he’s not. I think people bought into that and they buy into what he preaches and it’s a reason for our success.”
A video featuring an Olympic sprinter who was disappointed by not breaking a world record despite a gold-medal finish was the first thing this team watched before launching into the new season. Mazzulla has worked hard to remind his players that they have potential for greatness but are not yet a great team until they display the dominance they did a year ago.
And they can’t get back to that spot alone. They need each other. They need to be killer whales.
To hammer home Mazzulla’s message about how the Celtics should approach the season, there’s a sign that appeared in the team’s meal room recently at the Auerbach Center. It reads:
Is that a Komodo dragon? No, they tend to live solitary lives. They don’t hunt in packs. They are not the ideal apex predator for a basketball team.
But it sounds a lot like killer whales. And Mazzulla is hoping that pack mentality can deliver the Celtics to greatness again.
