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Joe Mazzulla has cemented himself as one of the best and most enigmatic coaches in the NBA since taking over on the sidelines for the Celtics. He has plenty of quirks that sum up the unique mentality that’s helped him find success, and nothing captures his essence like the reaction he had after Jayson Tatum went down with an injury during a playoff game on Sunday night.
In 2022, the Celtics were forced to pivot after head coach Ime Udoka was suspended for having an affair with a team employee less than a month before the season was slated to get underway.
That turned out to be a fairly serendipitous development for the franchise that promoted assistant coach Joe Mazzulla to the interim role, as he more than surpassed expectations and was named the team’s permanent skipper en route to leading them to the Eastern Conference Finals.
He proved that performance wasn’t a fluke when Boston secured its first championship since 2008 during his second season, and the man who currently possesses the highest winning percentage of any coach in NBA history led the team back to the playoffs this year.
Mazzulla has also emerged as the NBA’s version of Jim Harbaugh thanks to the idiosyncratic personality that makes him one of the most fascinating figures in the league.
After all, we’re talking about a man who was once subjected to an intervention because of how frequently he watched The Town, refuses to use revolving doors out of an abundance of caution, and decided to stop chewing gum during games because it prevented him from adequately focusing.
On Sunday, the Celtics officially kicked off their quest to defend their title when they hosted the Magic for the first game of their first-round playoff showdown. Boston took care of business with the 103-86 victory, but they did get a bit of a scare in the fourth quarter when Jayson Tatum ended up writhing around in pain after landing on his wrist in the wake of a play that led to Kentavious Caldwell-Pope being hit with a flagrant foul.
You’d usually expect a trainer to immediately rush onto the court in situations where a star player is visibly ailing. However, that did not end up being the case thanks to Mazzulla, who told a staffer ready to respond to stay on the sideline before yelling “Get up!” in Tatum’s direction.
Joe telling the trainer not to go out to Tatum and then immediately screaming “GET UP” is why he’s the perfect man for this job pic.twitter.com/GKi9hALfV4
— Dan Greenberg (@StoolGreenie) April 21, 2025
Tatum was able to keep playing after taping up the wrist and says the X-ray he received after the contest didn’t detect any damage.