Boston Celtics

Joe Mazzulla’s love of ‘The Town’ lands him on ‘Jeopardy!’ as a clue 

This marks the second time this year that Boston sports has been featured as a clue on "Jeopardy!".

Boston Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla during an NBA basketball game, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024, in Boston.
Joe Mazzulla was featured on 'Jeopardy!' Tuesday night. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Joe Mazzulla’s affinity for the Boston-based heist film, “The Town,” has been well-documented at this point.

It’s made his musings about the Ben-Affleck-directed flick go viral on several occasions, and probably has Fenway Park security doing a double-take whenever he steps into Boston’s ballpark. 

“I went to Fenway the other day, and I was literally looking at exit strategies to rob Fenway,” Mazzulla said earlier this year during an appearance on Barstool Sports’ “Pardon My Take”. “If we ever decided to rob Fenway, I was like, ‘We could probably really get away with this.’ How could you not go to Fenway and think you couldn’t rob it?”

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Now, Mazzulla’s love of the iconic 2010 film has landed him on “Jeopardy!” as a clue. 

During Tuesday’s episode of the longtime trivia game show, Mazzulla was mentioned as a hint for a question under the “Heist Movies” category.

The clue read: “Boston Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla has admitted to watching this heist film directed by Ben Affleck several times a week.” 

That’s not an embellishment on the part of Jeopardy’s writers, either. 

“As an assistant, I watched it two to three times a week, easy,” Mazzulla said of “The Town” on “Pardon My Take”. “We do most of our work after the games, so you have to stay up late at night. I never liked waking up with work to do from the day before. When I was an assistant, and I had to turn in my postgame edits, I would go home and just work from 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. I needed something to kind of keep me up or keep me going. 

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“There was a three-movie shuffle (the other two were “Whiplash” and “The Dark Knight”) that I would turn on in order to get me through the game so that I could get to bed. The Town ended up being one of them. It’s not something that I’m obsessed with to the point where I’m still watching it. That was a part of my postgame process that helped me.”

Mazzulla’s love of the film was first revealed during the 2022-23 season, when he told NBC Sports Boston’s Brian Scalabrine that he’d watch it four times a week because of its “Boston mindset”.

After the Celtics bested the 76ers in the Eastern Conference Semifinals later that season, Mazzulla wore a sweatshirt with the catchphrase from the film, “Whose car we gonna take?” during his postgame press conference. 

This marks the second time this year that a Boston sports team has been featured on “Jeopardy!”. 

In July, the Boston Bruins were the subject of a question in the category: “From the Dutch.” 

“This NHL franchise turning 100 in 2024 gets its name from a Dutch color word,” the clue read. 

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One contestant incorrectly guessed “orange,” with the other two contestants not risking a guess. 

“That would be the Boston Bruins,” show host Ken Jennings noted.  The word “Bruin” translates to “Brown” in Dutch.

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