The stories of Joe Mazzulla: Why the intense, intelligent and hilarious coach is perfect for these Celtics

Stephen Noh

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The stories of Joe Mazzulla: Why the intense, intelligent and hilarious coach is perfect for these Celtics image

ATLANTA — Exactly 90 minutes before his team faces the Hawks in the first round of the NBA Playoffs, Joe Mazzulla walks briskly into a State Farm Arena press conference room. He takes a seat behind the podium.

As reporters pepper him with questions, he gives immediate answers. He's direct and succinct. He has an intensity that radiates through his stare.

Mazzulla patiently responds to any and all questions, ranging from rotations to strategy. But there's one that he has rarely discussed: Who is Joe Mazzulla? Little is known about the personality of the man in charge of the presumptive title favorites.

"Which side do you want to know?" asks Celtics color commentator Brian Scalabrine. "The side he shows to you guys, or the side he shows to us?"

Mazzulla does let his personality leak through to the media from time to time. His friends, players and coaching staff see it daily. They will happily speak on the man that they call unique, intense, analytical, intelligent, vocal and highly competitive.

Most of all, Mazzulla is just a very funny dude.

Joe Mazzulla has an extremely quick wit.

"Because he's so intense, people probably don't know this," Celtics assistant coach Ben Sullivan said. "But he has a great sense of humor."

And that sense of humor is incredibly dry.

"I can't understand sometimes if he's serious or not," The Athletic's Jared Weiss said. "There's been a couple times where he's straight-up owned me, and I thought it was hilarious."

Some Mazzulla gems from the season include:

Current Youngstown State head coach Jerrod Calhoun coached Mazzulla, the player, at West Virginia University and hired Mazzulla, the coach, as an assistant at Fairmont State early in his career. Calhoun described Mazzulla as "a guy who constantly busted chops."

Calhoun recalled one incident during Mazzulla's playing days. Andy Kettler, a fiery strength coach on the team, was getting into it with a referee. The referee asked Mazzulla, "Who is this guy? He better calm down."

"And Joe said, 'Well, give him a technical.'"

The referee didn't quite know what to say after that.

Joe Mazzulla is the guy that Scalabrine is afraid to play pickup basketball against.

Mazzulla's pickup games have become the stuff of legend. He plays with his staff before most home games. Short clips of Mazzulla throwing players down and draining corner 3-pointers have made their way onto TV broadcasts, quickly going viral.

Stan Van Gundy claimed Mazzulla dove into the bench for a loose ball during a game that took place hours before a TNT tipoff.

Those clips provide only a glimpse of what happens in the coaching staff's pickup run. Mazzulla missed two games during the regular season because of corneal abrasions suffered in one pickup contest.

He inflicts plenty of damage, too. He grabs, pulls and even takes charges because, as he says, "It's an important psychological advantage."

Scalabrine, an 11-year NBA veteran, played in the game only once. The experience was too intense for him to repeat.

"I'm the one that's driving the bus when it comes to pickup," Scalabrine said. "You put me in any pickup game, I'm the one bringing up the energy. And I have nothing on Joe. He brings a level of intensity. He pushes you and makes you question why you're out there more than any person I've been around — and that's including [Kevin] Garnett!"

"Ultimately, I came to the conclusion that I don't want that life. I was about that life when I was 30, but at my age now, that's not what I'm into."

Joe Mazzulla is addicted to competition.

That propensity for taking charges in pickup basketball games? It dates back to his West Virginia days, when he "probably led the Big East" in that category, according to Calhoun.

As a college guard, Mazzulla loved wrestling against the biggest players that he could find. At 6-2, Mazzulla took on assignments like the 6-11 behemoth DeMarcus Cousins or 6-8 bruising forward Luke Harangody.

Mazzulla still harbors that intense competitiveness. Early in his coaching career, he would challenge his college players to push-up contests. He performed a jiu-jitsu flip unprompted in front of Marcus Smart earlier in the season, telling Smart, "I bet you can't do that."

He wrestles with his multi-millionaire players. He once challenged player development coach Garrett Jackson to walk a mile with him while holding kettlebells.

Celtics big man Al Horford once said that he wouldn't run a marathon because he couldn't run more than a mile. Mazzulla's response? "I would just go until I die."

Mazzulla's competitiveness drives him to study the rules of any game that he plays. Calhoun remembered a friendly card game that emerged during a joint family vacation — friendly, that is, until a rule came into question.

"It's not that serious," Calhoun joked. But Mazzulla insisted that there are "rules to this game."

Mazzulla studies NBA rules closely. He searches for any loopholes and every small edge, like when he started having his team roll the ball up when leading late in order to kill the game clock.

Whatever the rule is, Mazzulla will find a way to exploit it. When asked about the idea of banning the charge, he answered, "I don't care. Whatever the rules are, we'll find a way to follow them and manipulate them at the same time."

Joe Mazzulla is a self-improvement junkie and a master motivator.

Mazzulla is an avid reader. He likes to start his mornings with a walk and passage from the Bible. Meditation is part of his daily practice.

Mazzulla was addicted to chewing gum, but he stopped cold turkey because it was interfering with his breathing exercises, as he told SirusXM Radio's Justin Termine, taking away his focus and awareness during games.

"He's a deep thinker," Calhoun said. "He really thinks and plans. There's nothing that he won't do to motivate these guys to win a title. He's going to be creative. I don't think he's scared to do anything."

One technique that Mazzulla often uses is visualization, either with an image or object. He's placed a sand castle in the film room to remind players that, like a sand castle washing away on the beach every morning, the team needs to build new success each day.

"He's pretty unafraid to try something kind of different that might seem sort of weird," Celtics center Luke Kornet said. "But if he believes in it, then he feels the freedom to do it."

That includes showing the team videos of orca whales attacking seals in order to demonstrate the team's need for a killer instinct.

"It kind of became a thing," Kornet said. "It does work. A lot of times the images are more powerful than trying to say something over and over again."

He's the razor-smart coach that will do anything to win. He's the relationship-builder that uses humor and praise to soften hard talks. He's the quick-witted coach that will come up with the most literal possible response to the question that you're asking.

He's Joe Mazzulla.

Stephen Noh

Stephen Noh Photo

Stephen Noh started writing about the NBA as one of the first members of The Athletic in 2016. He covered the Chicago Bulls, both through big outlets and independent newsletters, for six years before joining The Sporting News in 2022. Stephen is also an avid poker player and wrote for PokerNews while covering the World Series of Poker from 2006-2008.